Master's Hypnosis
by phoenixreal
Summary: After being kidnapped by Aizen and co, Ichigo finds himself subjected to perfect hypnosis, in which he believes that Byukuya, Rukia, Renji, and all of soul society have captured and tortured him. When he's returned, he can't remember anything from before he became his master's pet. YAOI, MATURE READERS ONLY. Noncon, torture, etc. THIS IS DARK (but happy ending promised). IshiXIchi
1. Chapter 1 - Breaking Down

_A/N: Loyal readers, I am SOOO sorry to post ANOTHER new story start, but this one was literally rattling around in my head bursting to get out. So here I present my latest. I promise, I'll be finishing Animalistic first, then Ashes. Possibly Rainfall after that, but my muse has hit a blockade with the AU fics lately._

_I of course don't own Bleach or anything, duh._

_WARNINGS: MATURE readers only. This story will contain yaoi (eventually) but I can't decide on the pairing yet. Obviously it isn't going to be Ichigo and an espada. So not sure. Anyway, graphic descriptions of NONCON, TORTURE, ETC. So if this isn't your cup of tea, don't complain if you keep reading. Depending on reaction is how soon I'll continue it. :)_

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**Chapter One: Breaking Down**

Ichigo opened his eyes slowly. He was being held up by someone and he looked up to see Aizen looming over him. He gasped, and looked to either side to find he was held tightly by espada. What? Oh yeah…

_The hollow wasn't too bad, just a minor nuisance, but then there were garganta opening. Four of them. He blinked, even his sucky reiatsu sensing abilities recognizing….eight espada level. Eight? No way, he thought, no way. He pulled on the mask and before he knew it he was bound up in kido, that strange yellow flower looking one. He looked up and standing in the garganta were the traitor shinigami. He gasped and he looked behind him, only able to move his head and heard Rukia scream at him._

_ "Ichigo! No!" she called, and was swatted away like fly by a male espada with dark skin. _

_ He heard other voices, and looked back to see Toshiro and Matsamuto, and Urahara come flashing toward him. He felt hands grab him and stared into the blue haired espada's eyes as he yanked him and threw him over his shoulder. The kido faded, but one of the others, the green eyed one he'd seen before, slapped a set of bracers on his wrists, and his zanpakuto vanished, his black robes turned white. He gawked at the sight and reached out desperately as he was taken through the garganta to the sounds of shouting behind him. Then he felt a pain in the back of his head, and it all faded for a while._

"Glad to see you wake up, Ichi-kun," Aizen practically purred and suddenly was standing in front of him. He pulled his sword out.

I can't watch the shikai, I can't see it, he thought desperately and turned his head away screwing his eyes tight. He heard Aizen laugh and his head was painfully turned to face him. Fingers were prying at his eyes until the brown orbs were painfully open. The sword came out and Aizen stared at it for a minute.

"Shatter, Kyōka Suigetsu," he said and Ichigo's world wavered and fell around him.

-Karakura Town-

It was perhaps the strangest thing they'd had happen. One minute they were at Urahara's discussing the situation. Then, a hollow appeared, quickly followed by Ichigo's reiatsu heading toward it. They didn't worry, but they should have. A moment later, a crushing amount of reiatsu poured out from the same direction and they all felt the presence of eight espada, and three shinigami…the three traitors.

Everyone was gone in a flash, Rukia making it just in time to see Ichigo surrounded, and Aizen tossing a kido onto him. She called out, but as she neared a large dark skinned arrancar swatted her away, sending her crashing to the ground. She gasped, Renji flashing beside her and staring as they could do nothing. Toshiro came closest, seeing the kido release but then saw the bracers and Ichigo's transformation as his reiatsu was completely sealed away. Then, as quickly as it had started, they were through the garganta, Toshiro almost touching Ichigo's reaching hand before the garganta slammed shut. He didn't realize he'd been yelling.

They regrouped, and called on Soul Society, and tried to figure things out. They all gave their reports, and no one could find a good reason for Aizen to capture the substitute shinigami. Except to contain him, or try to use him. Urahara worried he'd try to use the hogyuku to transform him into an arrancar. He didn't think it would work, but perhaps. If they wanted him dead, they would have killed him, not taken him. And they tried. For a long time. But it was six months before they got even a clue to what had happened to their friend. At just past six months, there was a garganta that opened in soul society. They felt no presence enter. But a captain was dispatched, this time Kuchiki Byakuya would investigate with Renji the strange occurrence. It had been happening off and on over the last few months, with never anything coming through the garganta.

They arrived and nearly left, assuming nothing had come through once again until Renji spotted something. A bundle with a shock of orange sticking out from it. Renji's eyes widened and he breathed. "Taichou…"

Byakuya approached cautiously to find a heavy, dark cloth bundle, with a shock of familiar orange hair. He kneeled down, noting that the hair was not bright, in fact it was dingy and dark, but it was still orange. He reached down and pulled the cloth down slowly and winced. His face was littered with bruises, old and new, and cuts in varying stages of healing, some still bleeding. His head was tilted back, and he could see the gaps in his molars where they had been removed, and something told him it hadn't been done nicely. His breaths were short and shallow, almost nonexistent. He continued to pull it down, revealing his chest, like his face, covered with bruises and cuts, and he was drawn incredibly thin, ribs stretching out the skin painfully. While soul form didn't require food, a person with high reiatsu needed substance, and Ichigo had very strong reiatsu. Even if there was none there now. He didn't want to continue, but he swallowed and scanned downward as he lifted the rest of the cloth.

Renji was the first to move, tossing the cover back over him and stumbling back to vomit in the brush behind him. His entire pelvis was a mass of purple and black, and he was sure it wasn't supposed to be at that angle. There were thick, red lines running down his thighs and pelvis, up into his lower stomach like the skin had been peeled off of his body. There were burns that looked like an iron had been used on his legs. His legs were twisted wrong, covered with bruising marks and cuts. Renji breathed harshly and looked back at his barely living friend.

"Taichou, what did they do to him?" he breathed and then Ichigo's eyes began to flutter.

Amazed, both kneeled beside him waiting for him to wake up. A friendly face would surly help. At least, that's what they thought, and it would have been a good thought. Except they had no idea what had happened, what he had endured for far longer than six months that had passed for the two shinigami that kneeled over him.

His eyes slowly opened and blinked, almost dazed, and then his eyes settled on Byakuya and Renji and he gasped, his vacant eyes fearful, as he tried to push away from them both.

"No, please, no more, master!" he cried out. "Good pet."

Byakuya frowned. "Ichigo, what is it?"

He watched as his voice set the man to shivering and cowering in fear. "Please, don't. Pet will be good!"

He'd pulled the dark cloth around him and was pulling away from them inch by inch. Byakuya frowned and turned to Renji. Renji moved forward, gasping as Ichigo flinched hard enough to fall backward away from him, letting out a whimpering sound.

"Renji-sama, don't hurt pet anymore," he whispered, laying back, arms falling open to his sides.

His eyes rolled up and he thankfully passed out. Renji and Byakuya exchanged very confused glances.

"Did he think we were someone else, like Aizen or something?" Renji said softly. "But he used my name."

Byakuya shook his head, and gathered up the young shinigami in his arms, flashing back to the squad four headquarters as fast as he could, taking the beaten and broken boy to Unohana.

News traveled fast, of course, and soon enough people had come to find out how the substitute shinigami was doing. They'd all heard he'd been recovered, but not how or what had happened. Byakuya and Renji were in the back with him and Unohana. Rukia had pushed her way in, waiting beside Ukitake nervously. She was frustrated because she knew her bother had been the one to find him, and she was beside herself with worry. She had no idea how he was. She saw Ikkaku and Yumichika waiting, no doubt to report back to Kenpachi and Yachiru. Toshiro and Matsumoto had come to wait as well, having been there when he was taken.

Finally, Renji emerged and Rukia gasped to see the haunted look on his face and how pale he was. He wandered into the room and dropped to a chair wordlessly staring into space.

"Renji!" Rukia said, bringing him out of his trance to look at her.

He swallowed and looked at her with wide eyes. "I…I can't even…"

She looked up to see Byakuya come out, stoic as always. He looked around. "Can't this wait until I've reported to the sotaichou?"

He was met with glares. He sighed, glancing at his sister and his fukutaichou. "He'll live, but there are some things very wrong with him. His injuries are severe, and he's had reiatsu sealing cuffs grafted to his wrists. Unohana-taichou isn't sure how to remove them at this point, somehow they're tied into his nervous system and into his brain. She is of the opinion that time has passed more for him than it has for us. She estimates he's been held for well over two years."

He turned and left to report to the head captain, leaving stunned silence in his wake. Rukia looked at Renji. Eventually, everyone left and Rukia and Renji both stood in the room with Ichigo. The head captain had come by, even, eying the boy with a sadness that neither shinigami understood. Time passed as they waited for their friend to wake up. He was pale, thin, and drawn. His hair was much longer, obviously the estimate of two years was close to the truth, not that they doubted the fourth division's captain's estimates. Rukia reached out and picked up his hand. She bit her lip, running her hands over the bones in his fingers. She could tell easily that they had been broken, several times by the look. Deep scarring ran through the flesh, as though a sword had been used to pin his hand down. She shuddered at the thought. That was probably what had happened.

She ran her fingers up to the cuffs. They were imbedded into the skin, flush, and she wondered if there was even any skin below them. The skin at the edges had tried to grow around the imbedded metal. Just touching them, she felt a drain on her own spiritual energy and she shivered at it. There was writing on it, barely discernible anymore.

She gasped out loud then. "Renji, did you read this?"

Renji leaned over and stared, eyes widening in shock. "Is that what I think it is?"

"It's the Kuchiki seal," she whispered. "Why is our seal on this? We know it came from Aizen?"

The ensuing gasp from Ichigo made her look up, smiling. "Ichigo! You're awake!"

He stared at her, his eyes wide with absolute terror. He flashed his eyes up to look at Renji again, and then around the room. He snatched his hand away from the shocked Rukia and backpedaled off the bed, landing with a thump and a whine as he jarred his injuries but it didn't stop him. He continued, yanking off all the monitors as he went. Loud sounds resounded and he cringed away, covering his ears and pulling in on himself, his knees coming to his chest, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

Rukia ran around the bed and dropped in front of him, his head jerking up at her, his eyes wide. "No, pet be good, Rukia-sama, for Rukia-sama, please don't call Renji-sama…" he said whispering, looking up and seeing Renji, pulling his head down again and covering it up. "No, no Renji-sama…"

Rukia looked up at Renji, a deep frown crossing her face. "Ichigo, why are you calling us that?"

Ichigo shook his head, still covering it with shaking arms. "Master says, master says…or Rukia-sama will punish pet for master."

Rukia looked up to see Unohana watching, wide eyed. Rukia tried to touch him and he flinched backward, pulling into the wall, shaking violently. "Ichigo, what did Aizen do to you?"

Ichigo shook his head. "No, master, master," he muttered hoarsely.

"Who is 'master', Ichigo?" Renji asked, moving forward even with Rukia. He looked up and around.

"Was here but didn't punish pet," he said simply, resuming his protective stance. "Master always punishes pet for being bad."

Unohana looked up as Ukitake entered, looking down at the cowering boy on the floor. Rukia looked up at him with wide eyes. Renji moved forward to try and touch him gently, only to have him jerk away, reaching up to tug at his neck, but stopped, his eyes wide.

"Where is it?" he gasped. "Oh where is it?" His hands grasped at his throat, and there was a definite deep red line where some sort of collar had been.

"Master will be mad, master will be mad, is that why Renji-sama is here? Is that why? Oh, master is mad…" he said, franticly looking around the room. Then he froze.

Rukia looked up to see her brother in the doorway, then looked back at Ichigo. "M-master is angry at pet," he said dejectedly and dropped to the floor, his hands folding under his chin, and legs pulled into his stomach in a ball.

Byakuya was confused. Unohana placed a hand on his shoulder, then looked at Ukitake. "Jushiro, can you get him back into his bed? I think I know what's happened…"

She led the Kuchikis and the fukataichou of sixth division into a more private room. She sighed. "I think Aizen used Kyōka Suigetsu on him," she said softly. "He seems to believe that you three were his captors."

Byakuya was for once not stoic, a rise of the old untempered anger from his youth rushing in his veins. "He did this, with my likeness?"

Unohana nodded. "He calls himself 'pet', no doubt something that has been beaten into him. He's lost his entire sense of self-identity, most likely to protect what remains of himself deep in his mind. More than two years of this would break the strongest person from the look of the extensive damage. Not to mention the other things he has suffered besides the physical torture he's endured."

Rukia visibly paled. "You mean…"

Unohana sighed. "There are extensive signs of prolonged abuse, both physical and sexual."

Rukia looked up at Renji and then her brother. To his credit, Byakuya hadn't lost his temper. Though it had been close. "So he thinks that we have done this to him?" he said with a dangerous softness.

"With every fiber of his being. Perfect hypnosis was enough that we believed Aizen was dead, I handled the body, everything was real. It isn't a stretch for him to have been using it to keep up the ruse. Though why he chose to use your likeness I'm unsure, though perhaps because of Rukia and Renji's affection for him. But we can't assume that you were the only ones used to torture him," she said as Ukitake stood in the door, looking pale.

"I can't get near him, he's put himself in the corner of the room, and I can't…I can't…" his voice was tight. "He asked me if it was my turn today."

Unohana sighed. "This is going to be harder than I thought if he's used all of us on him. The torture is not part of the hypnosis, the damage is very physical, so I'm assuming he would use hypnosis to convince him that those doing these things were us instead of Aizen and his espada. We need someone whose image wasn't used to torture him, or we're never going to get anywhere."

Rukia looked up, remembering her discussion with the eccentric shopkeeper. "Urahara."

Unohana and Ukitake exchanged a glance. "I'll go to the head captain."

"I'll find someone that Aizen hopefully was unfamiliar in to work with him for now, hopefully to get him to eat or something. Kurotsuki-taichou is working on a way to extract the bracers, but he's not having much luck. Perhaps Urahara-san can help him," she said thoughtfully.

Rukia frowned. "Why would that eccentric man be able to help him?"

"Well, Urahara-taichou did found the department of research and development when he was captain of division twelve…"she said and exited, leaving a dumbfounded Rukia and Renji.

The stood outside the room, watching as a young girl that was new to the division finally coaxed Ichigo from his corner and back into the bed, where he possessively clutched at the sheets, as though he were afraid that they would be taken from him. Considering that he had a barely mended shattered pelvic bone, fractured shin and dislocated hip, she wasn't sure how he could move that much. She grimaced, though realizing that he must be used to that kind of pain. The gentle blond managed to talk him into having some broth and he took a couple sips, then frowned and gave it back. She looked at Rukia and Renji with tired eyes.

"I tried to tell him he was Ichigo, that he shouldn't call himself pet, but he won't have any of it, just muttering about how master says he's pet now," she said sighing.

They stood and watched as he curled on his side and clutched the sheets against his chest. It wasn't long until Rukia and Renji heard a familiar voice behind them.

"You've found him," he said quietly. Behind Urahara were Yourichi and the blond man that had been training Ichigo. Shinji, if she remembered correctly.

Rukia looked at him, tears streaming down her face. "But it isn't him anymore!"

Urahara put a hand on her shoulder. "Let's see if we can't connect with him, and hope Aizen wasn't cruel enough to think to use us against him as well."

The entered the room together and Urahara carefully put a chair near his head. He reached out to touch him and the expected flinch came, but his wide eyes settled on unfamiliar faces. He looked between the three of them, no recognition in his eyes.

"Ichigo?" Urahara asked quietly. Ichigo shook his head.

"No, that's gone," he whispered, looking between the three of him from his place with his head nearly buried in his chest.

"Ichigo, no it isn't. You are Ichigo, remember? Do you recognize me?" Urahara continued.

At first he shook his head, but the stopped, and stared intently at Urahara's hat. Urahara reached up and took it off, handing it Ichigo. He reached a shaky hand out to take it, staring intently at the stripes of green and white as if it was the last thing in the universe. Urahara leaned closer.

"You know my hat, right Ichigo?" he said softly.

Slowly, the substitute shinigami turned the hat over in his hands, and nodded. It was there, right behind the picture of the hat. Just outside of the realm of touching. "Hat…" he murmured, running the fabric through his fingers. "Hat and clogs…" he whispered thoughtfully, and Urahara's heart swelled at the fact he might remember him, somewhere in his fogged mind. "Ur-Ura-hara," he stammered and looked up at the blond who was smiling gently.

"That's it, Ichigo. That's it. Do you remember me now?" he asked.

Ichigo shook his head. "Urahara."

"That's enough, now do you remember this woman?" he said, letting Yourichi kneel beside him. He stared at her, his head tipped to the side, taking in the woman with dark skin and purple hair.

"Cat?" he murmured and Yourichi smiled.

"Yes, Ichigo, remember I'm a cat half the time, you remember that?" she said softly.

"B-black cat," he whispered, looking at her intently. "Y-your-r-richi?"

She rewarded him with a broad smile and a nod. "That's it, Ichigo. You're remembering," she said and stood back, letting Shinji take her place.

"You know me, right Ichigo?" Shinji said smiling his typical broad smile. "We haven't been friends as long as the others, but you remember me?"

"Friends," Ichigo mused then shook his head. "No friends for pet, no friends for pet, no friends for pet," he began repeating, reaching up and holding his head, dropping Urahara's hat.

Urahara reached out and pulled his hand down. "Ichigo, you have friends. Friends that won't ever hurt you, okay?"

There were tears in his eyes. "Friends hurt pet. Monster, monster, punished," he whispered, frightened by his own words. "Monsters get punished, pet is a monster inside…Master said so."

Despite the glimmer of recognition Urahara sighed, and pulled his hand to examine the cuffs. They had been on him a long time. Just being near them, he felt his own energy being sapped. And his eyes flashed in recognition as he looked between them and up at Ichigo.

He sighed and stood. "Will you stay with him? I'm going to see if I can help Mayuri-san. There is a possibility that they're interfering with his mind too. The reiatsu drain is enough, but there's no reason to have wired it directly into his nervous system unless it was to make it easier to 'train' him."

As he exited, Unohana stopped him. "I think you may be right, Urahara-san. When we did our scans there seems to be blocks in his brain. Some areas don't appear to be functioning at all, like the higher order thinking skills, problem solving, and long term memory."

Urahara nodded. "Something tells me he refused to give in to them easily with just Aizen's hypnosis. They used something else to make him more manageable and make sure that we wouldn't be able to use him."

"Why not just kill him?" Unohana said, glancing into the room as Shinji tried to talk with his broken friend.

Urahara sighed. "Because it would only have destroyed him. This way, he destroys him, and everyone who is close to him."


	2. Chapter 2 - Broken Bonds

**Chapter Two: Broken Bonds**

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His first thought was pain. A lot of pain. His arms were behind him in some sort of painful kido, and he was held down to the floor with it. He looked up to see a face that surprised him. Rukia was watching him carefully, seated on a low futon in front of him. He looked around to see that he was in…in…Kuchiki manor? He wondered what had happened, he was…what had happened? He couldn't put his finger on it.

"Rukia?" he said softly. "What's going on? Why am I bound?"

She smirked at him. He was a little surprised. Since when did the midget smirk. "Why wouldn't you be bound? We don't let hollows run free."

He blinked. "What the hell are you talking about, Rukia? I'm not a hollow!"

"Close enough. That power you call up, I've seen it. And it is sickening. How can you even do something so disgusting?" she said softly.

He blinked and tried to say something only to feel something connect painfully with his jaw, and if he hadn't been bound to the spot he would have fallen with the force of it. He felt blood running down his face and he gasped to look up and see a familiar red haired man.

"Renji, the hell, what is going on?" he yelled.

Renji grinned at him in a very unnatural way that reminded him of someone else. His mind couldn't pin his finger on who though, who that predatory grin reminded him of. "You shouldn't talk unless yer told, pet."

Ichigo scowled up at him. "The hell you call me, bastard?"

It was a comment followed with another kick, this time to his temple, sending him reeling and pitching forward. He blinked away stars and pulled himself up again and found that Byakuya had replaced Rukia. He was staring at him with that stoic expression but something was wrong. He shook his head. That couldn't be Byakuya. Byakuya didn't smile.

"Forget what you've known, no one is going to help you now, you belong to me, nothing more than a pet for my amusement," the raven haired man said softly.

Ichigo scowled. "What the hell are you talking about? Whose idea is this? I'm not amused, let me out of this damn kido!"

In flash, Bykuya was kneeling in front of him, one hand painfully gripping his chin. From behind, he felt Renji and something slapped harshly around his neck. His eyes bulged. It was heavy. "All good pets wear a collar," Byakuya whispered and forced his mouth only Ichigo's. In surprise, he sucked in a breath, giving the noble a chance to force his tongue into Ichigo's own mouth. The surprise only lasted a moment and he scowled even deeper and bit down on the intruding member. There was no noise from him as he pulled away, wiping blood from his mouth and Ichigo felt accomplished. He'd made him bleed.

"I wasn't going to do this the first day, pet, but you will be punished for that," he whispered dangerously, and for a moment Ichigo felt his stomach tighten at the threat and promise in that voice. But why did it sound wrong? Why did it make him think it wasn't Byakuya?

He didn't have time to contemplate it as he felt hands on his hips as he was bent in the uncomfortable position with his hands bound on his back. It was the same one Tessai had used in the hell hole, he thought idly. But he fell forward with a crash, his nose busting into the floor with a cry as he felt his knees and ankles released from a bond and forced apart. He was so concerned with the pain blossoming in his nose he almost didn't notice the searing pain behind him. Almost.

"No, stop, what are you doing!" he cried, trying to move from his awkward position as he saw Byakuya staring at him, and he screamed as he forced himself into him. Tears sprung unbidden to his eyes. "Byakuya, stop! Itai! Itai!"

"Fool, it is supposed to hurt. And it will only get worse, so unless you want me to continue to punish you, you'll do as your told," he said roughly. Ichigo turned his head to see Renji kneeling in front of him.

Renji grinned again and Ichigo felt the tickle at his mind that he looked like someone else when he did that, but before he could think, his jaw was being forced open and Renji was forcing himself into his mouth, gagging him as his body fought to eject the offending object lodging its way down his throat.

"Slutty pet," Renji whispered. "You'll behave or I'll go and make sure that those friends of yours that came here will die painfully. They deserve to be punished like this too, do you think your princess would like the feel of my cock in her throat like this?"

Ichigo felt a creeping horror as he shook his head, his breath ragged by now. Pain was shooting up his back like a knife. Renji bucked into his mouth and before long he felt the sick feeling of warm liquid shooting into his throat. Behind him, his first assaulter was having a difficult time maintaining his rhythm, and he met his completion, and Ichigo's stomach turned and lurched, as he left him, feeling warm, wet liquid run down his legs. He smelled blood.

"You can stay here until Rukia-sama comes back to teach you your place with her whips, pet," Byakuya said, leaving the shocked shinigami substitute to stare blankly into space.

And so he watched as his world unraveled around him. People he trusted, people he loved, even, in and out of his small, tortured room. He was let up from the kido, but he had no power, thick bracers on his wrists sealing off his power. They would come, and the worst was the irons. The searing hot pain was enough to make him cry when they left, thick stripes of burned flesh on his legs putting him in agony. Rukia loved using the irons, laughing when she did it.

He wasn't breaking. He still fought them. No matter how many times he was kicked, or heard the crunch of his ribs or fingers, he still fought. Refusing to call them master, or sama, and refusing to refer to himself as pet. He was _not_ a pet, and he would be damned if they broke him. He couldn't tell time, of course, but he knew a lot of time had passed. He was nursing a couple broken ribs, curled up on his futon, the thought of covering his nakedness lost long ago. He heard someone enter and he looked up in surprise to see Toshiro.

"T-toshiro? He said to the small captain, who stared at him, tilting a head to the side.

"Such trash," he muttered. "You've become such dirty, used trash," he said walking over to him. "Disgusting. You won't even acknowledge your position. It's been a year, and you still resist. Not anymore," he said and pushed him back on the futon, his eyes searching Ichigo's for a sign that the spark was gone.

He found the spark still alive despite the beatings, the punishments, the pain. He shook his head impassively and struck him and pushed him down. For some reason, pain lanced through Ichigo's heart looking up into the face of the small captain as he forced himself on him. He was smaller than Ichigo, but Ichigo was weak, and shocked that Toshiro of all people would do something like this. When he had finished he turned back.

"Kuchiki-taichou has tired of you so he's letting us have our way with you when we want. Enjoy Kenpachi's ministrations, pet," he said with seething venom as he left.

For some reason, Ichigo was left shaking. He'd been trapped like this a year in this hell? He'd thought it was just Byakuya, Rukia and Renji, but the rest knew he was here? The rest had turned on him too? It was too much, even the pain lancing through his rear didn't stop him from rocking back and forth with arms wrapped around his knees. They'd all decided that he was a monster? All of them? Surely…no, he thought. An image of Toshiro popped into his mind, his white hair ruffled, thick ice wings on his back, and he was reaching out, yelling for Ichigo. Yelling, and yelling, and he was frantic to reach him, but then the image blinked out of existence.

He shook his head. No, that was real. Toshiro tried to save him, save him from what? Rukia's voice and she was sailing away from him. He saw his hands reaching out and the inky blackness faded. He started to see Byakuya return, and he had Mayuri beside him, his face adorned with his usual manic grin. Ichigo started, pushing away toward the corner of his futon into the corner of the room.

"Pet, we have some new bracelets for you," Byakuya said, advancing until he reached out and yanked Ichigo's arms forward. "These are special, like your collar," he said, holding it up, displaying the Kuchiki clan seal carved into the metal. He reached forward and unsnapped the bracers that Ichigo was currently wearing, falling to the floor with a clink. He gasped as his power rushed back for a moment and he heard a vague voice in his head screaming at him to move, to run, quickly, he had to go.

Mayuri quickly replaced them with the new ones and Ichigo's world burned hot. He stared as to his horror they began to sink into his flesh, seeming to melt the flesh and muscle underneath it. He tried to yank away but Mayuri had a death grip on his forearms, his fingers leaving bright purple bruises in the flesh. It burned, and he started to scream despite himself as the pain started to fire every nerve in his body. His head fell back and his body began to convulse violently. He could still hear, though, though he had no control over his body.

"Hrm, he may die," Mayuri muttered. "But if not, it will short out his nervous system the way we want it to do so. He should stop resisting so much in the next week or two. Make him repeat things to you, over and over, that's how you'll imprint it on him once his brain starts shutting down. He'll become a shell, just the way you want."

Byakuya snorted. "He had to make it difficult. He couldn't just break on his own. Well, this is upset them even more, to see him like this, helpless and nothing but my, rather Byakuya's willing pet."

Ichigo was fading in and out. Memories were slipping away rapidly. He was trying to hold to them, but he couldn't stop them. Yuzu's face flashed but it was gone, who was the girl with light brown hair again? The face was gone too. Then it was his father's face but it was unfamiliar, and a line of faces flashed and disappeared. His body arched painfully, a sharp pain shooting through his head.

"Pet, you are pet, now, Ichigo is gone, pet, only pet," he heard whispered in his ear.

Who was Ichigo? He thought as his brain spun out of control. Everything was crashing into each other and he was shivering as the hot breath on his neck kept whispering, reminding him he was a pet, he was their pet, and he would be their pet forever, he had no name, no name, and if he thought he did for a moment, he'd be punished, severely. He didn't want to be punished. He wanted to be a good pet for his master. The face of Byakuya melded with the word master and there was no other in the world.

"Who are you?" the voice asked softly as his ringing ears finally could hear properly.

"Pet, master's good pet," he whispered, the spark in his eyes gone completely. The fire was gone now, completely extinguished.

Renji stood at the doorway, a frown creasing his brow. This turn of events was not what he would consider appropriate. Fucking the shinigami was one thing, but the fire every time, the fighting, scratching and biting no matter how many times he was beaten down, that was what drove the creature under Renji's face. And what he was looking at was not the same thing anymore. He kept watching as the others left, as he lay on the futon, his body twitching every now and again as the cuffs that had imbedded into his wrists sent out a spark of power. Blood was seeping from the edges of them, and from his nose, mouth and ears. The look though, the look of complete emptiness. He couldn't look anymore, and turned to leave.

Behind Renji's face, he watched. He did as he was told, taking the boy when he was told to punish him, but always felt sick afterward when before his dominance gave him a rush over the enemy who deemed to look on him with such looks in his eyes. Now, he left the room, wanting to retch. It wasn't his enemy anymore. He wasn't even sure what that was. It might as well have been his human body, the soul gone.

Still he watched. The various faces of his friends came to torment him. All the captains it seemed, and his friend Rukia would beat him regularly with whips, chains and use branding irons. The knives were the worst, and he knew that if the shell had been aware, he'd recognize the zanpakuto she was using to cut and strip flesh with was not her own. He almost regretted what they were doing. Scratch that, he did regret it. Tearing down a worthy foe into…that. He was over him again, punishing the pet for some unknown thing and his hands gripped his neck underneath him, bringing his eyes to look at him, and he swore he saw the spark for a moment.

"Kill me," he whispered so softly that he almost missed it. "Please…kill me…"

The man behind the mask of Renji Abarai almost complied, but as he was about to squeeze that thin column of flesh hard enough to snap it, he heard the door open and he relented, leaving heavy, black bruising. He gasped hard. He was aware at some level. He knew. And somehow, that left the monster above him feel even sicker. He finished his job and stumbled out of the room. They had said he shouldn't remember anything, only what he was trained to remember. But if he was able to summon the thought to request he kill him, that meant that he was still in there. Somewhere, the vibrant fighter that never backed down, was in there, begging to be released, if only in death.

Time passed, and the man wearing the visage of Byakuya smiled. The time had come. He reached down and removed the heavy collar from his neck, and wrapped a heavy blanket around him. With is companions, no longer needing the visages they had worn, walked through the white halls.

"Grimmjow, if you'd be so kind, it is time to deposit our gift for our dear friends in soul society," Aizen said, a malicious grin across his face.

Grimmjow couldn't help but feel the rising in his chest that they would be getting rid of the shell that used to be Ichigo. He was at the cusp of not being able to take it anymore. Aizen walked through with the bundle and returned empty handed, grinning at Gin and Grimmjow.

"Now, their precious prodigy will be useless, and everyone he knows will see what I can do to their strongest and most hopeful," he said, a smirk tugging at his lips.

Grimmjow looked at him. "Will he ever come back to himself?" he pondered.

Szayel stood, arms folded behind them. "If they manage to extract the cuffs without killing him, I doubt it. The damage to his brain may be permanent. I mean, how could it not be? I practically blasted parts of it out of existence," he said grinning broadly.

Aizen smiled. "Good, I want them all to suffer and realize how impotent and useless they are. They couldn't manage to save one person. How will they save all of soul society? They won't."

They moved away leaving a thoughtful Grimmjow. He looked over to see the brunette primera yawning. Stark had been the only one of the espada to refuse to take part in the games with Kurosaki, claiming laziness. "Makes you wonder what he'll do to us when he gets power," he said and turned to leave.

The words lanced into him suddenly. He shook it off and wandered into his rooms. No, he had to do something, didn't he? What would happen? They'd given in to the bastard shinigami. And now, his only rival was worse than dead. He imagined soul society in an uproar right then, finding him and trying to fix him. Before they'd taken him back, they'd made sure to leave him barely alive. He frowned and flicked a hand opening a garganta to the world of the living without a second thought. He was looking for someone.

He contained his reiatsu. He didn't need to get caught by random shinigami. He reached out, feeling the reiatsu of the woman that hung out with him, and he sensed several other strong reiatsu around her. He leaped, following it to a white rooftop, dropping down with hands deep in his pockets, staring at a group sitting around food and drinks. The reaction was instantaneous, the raven haired boy leaping to his feet and a bright blue bow shimmering into existence, the tall dark boy taking an offensive stance, and the strawberry blond's hands going to her head. Luckily, they were the only ones there.

Grimmjow snorted, reaching up to idly scratch his ear with his pinky. "Yo, if I wanted ya dead ya'd already be dead, baka."

The three didn't relax much. "Look, fuck if I know what I came here for, but I fuckin' know wrong when I see it and Aizen's fuckin' talking about this woman's weird power. So maybe you can fix him."

Inoue dropped her hands and looked at her two companions. "Fix who?"

"Kurosaki, baka. He's in soul society by now. Broke as fuck, though. You might want to see if you can fix him."

Inoue's eyes started to brim with tears. "What do you mean? He's been gone six months…"

Grimmjow snorted. "Try over two years, at least to him."

Ishida and Chad exchanged glances. "What happened?" Ishida asked, moving up to put a hand around Inoue's shoulders.

Grimmjow shrugged. "Don't know exactly, cept you won't know him anymore. His memory is fucked, and who knows, even if he had it, he might now want to live anymore. I fuckin' wouldn't."

He reached up and snapped the garganta, looking back. "But ya should fuckin' see if you can help him. He's still fuckin' in there, barely, he asked me a few times to kill him. And if he gets enough of himself back, he may do it himself."

He stepped through, leaving the three teens shocked and still. All three of them bolted for the door to head to Urahara's, racing past teachers and students alike, ignoring them all. Tatsuki started, to see them all run, and followed. They pounded the door to the shop, and were surprised when a disheveled Urahara answered.

"Aha, I'm afraid I'm busy…" he said, glancing behind him.

"Urahara-san! We have to see him!" Inoue cried.

Urahara could see by the tears in her eyes somehow she knew what was happening. "He's in soul society; Grimmjow told me I had to help him!"

He glanced around outside, sensing someone else was there, but the pained look the girl was giving him, he couldn't stop the sigh. "I can't take you with me yet. I have to get permission, and I'll send someone to open the seikaimon for you, okay? Rukia, or Renji maybe. Just stay here with Tessai. From what I've been told…you shouldn't come yet."

"He-he said that he begged him to die, that he wanted him to kill him, and he-he said if he were him, he'd have killed himself already. What happened to Kurosaki-kun, Urahara-san? What did they do to him?"

Urahara put a hand on her shoulder. "I am not sure. I know he's hurt, and his reiatsu is sealed by artificial means…and they told me…he's not himself right now. He thinks that the people that hurt him were soul society, not Aizen. He used the complete hypnosis to convince him that all of soul society had turned on him, and that's all I know right now. Please, wait here until I can send someone to retrieve you." He looked up at Chad and Ishida. "I assume you want to go as well?" They nodded.

He left them there, at the steps to the shoten, and they waited. Tatsuki emerged from the hiding place and watched them, locking eyes with them.

"You know where Ichigo is? You knew what happened to him, all this time?" she said, breathing hard. She had known it was serious. She'd always been able to sense him. And he was simply gone now.

Inoue burst into tears, and Ishida pulled her to him, rubbing her back. "Yes and no," he said. "We knew he'd been taken, and where, but it was somewhere we couldn't get to him. Not without dying before we made it more than a few steps."

Tatsuki sat down beside him. They waited until the sun was setting low and a doorway opened in the sky above them. Rukia and Renji flashed down to the ground and started to see the raven haired girl.

"Rukia-chan?" she asked, staring at her.

She nodded, and looked at the others. "I brought three hell butterflies, are you sure you want to come?"

The three humans looked at her. "Why not?"

Renji turned his face away, looking sick. "I…I don't think you want to go."

Inoue and Ishida traded glances. "Why, why wouldn't we?"

"It's not him; he's not in there right now, Orhime. Maybe he is, but we can't reach him. He's more damaged than we even know," Rukia said quietly.

Inoue took a shaky breath. "Grimmjow was here, and he said I might be able to help him, maybe the only one that can fix the damage, whatever that means," she said quietly.

Rukia and Renji exchanged glances. "Maybe she can do something about the cuffs?" he said softly. "Or what they've done to his mind? Could she really extract them? Reject that kind of damage?"

Rukia looked at her. "I don't know but if we can get the cuffs off, maybe we can reach the hollow or the zanpakuto spirit…"

"Cuffs?" Ishida asked.

Renji nodded and Rukia spoke softly. "They…they grafted these reiatsu sealing cuffs onto him, practically to the bones in his forearms. They're somehow connected into his nervous system, Urahara-san and Kurotsuki-taichou are trying to figure out how to remove them without killing him. But we're not sure of the damage they've done. His…his long term memory, all the higher thinking skills, those parts of his brain…they're barely functioning, and we don't know if they have been destroyed or simply suppressed."

Chad surprised them by speaking. "Why would they do something like that?"

Renji closed his eyes. "Aizen used the hypnosis, convinced him that we…Kuchiki-taichou, Rukia and me, were his tormentors. And later the rest of the captains and his friends from soul society. From what we can tell he wouldn't break, so they used the cuffs on him to train him, like some kind of animal. He's functioning…like…one."

There were exchanged looks as Rukia opened the gateway and walked through, waiting for the three allies to follow her. The headed forward, unsure what to expect on the other side.


	3. Chapter 3 - Shattered Glass

_A/N: *hides from rotten fruit* I promise, I'll give you two chappies on animalistic this weekend sometime! I have NO idea what pairing this is. So, no clue who is going to provide the healin' love for the poor broken boy. It won't be a girl (how can I fangirl over yaoi if I make it het?), and it won't be Chad. See, I don't get that pairing. Never will. So yeah, the rest are up for grabs. _

**Chapter Three: Shattered Glass**

* * *

Inoue, Chad and Ishida really didn't know what to expect when they walked from the senkaimon behind Rukia and Renji. They noted the wide berth they were given when they entered the open front area.

"Wait here a minute, I'll have to get Urahara to take you in. We…we can't go in there with him," Rukia said, her eyes instantly misting over.

Renji stayed, looking down at the floor. Ishida frowned. "What do you mean he acts like an animal?"

The redhead shook his head. "It's like he has no mind of his own anymore. Like all he says are phrases he's told he can say. Always phrased the same way, always repeated. Keeps calling me Renji-sama and Rukia Rukia-sama. He doesn't respond to his name either, but try to use it, okay? Urahara managed to trigger a memory of his Urahara's name with his hat, so I know that he's still in there somewhere. And he looks like hell. Even after the healing that's been done today."

Inoue twisted her hands. "Should I try…"

"Don't try anything yet, Orhima-san," Urahara said, walking up to them with Rukia. "We really don't know how deeply the effects are, and we're not sure exactly how much is special damage, and how much psychological."

He motioned them forward but stopped outside the door. "Whatever you do, please, do _not_ try and touch him."

The three exchanged looks. Urahara focused on Inoue. "Please, I know you'll want to hug him, but don't, really. It won't be a favorable encounter for either of you. The amount of abuse he's gone through…I honestly can't say if he'll ever stand anyone touching him again. People he doesn't know, like the healers, he'll tolerate them to a degree, but not to actually touch him. And…I am hoping that he hasn't been tormented with you three but we'll see if Aizen used you as well."

Urahara knocked gently then opened the door. "Ichigo? I brought friends to see you again," he said, and ushered them into the room.

The lights were dimmed, and they could see his back was to them, orange hair wild and much longer than it had been. He didn't move. Urahara moved forward. "Ichigo, I brought Uryu-san…Chado-san…and Orhime-san to see you."

He moved closer. "Please, Ichigo, I don't want to scare you, can you turn and see your friends?"

There was still no response. He bit his lip, preparing for this. He'd had to do this a couple times already after he refused to acknowledge his own name and any presence that was not his "master" or Rukia and Renji. He knew that he had been trained that way.

"I'm so sorry, Ichigo," he whispered and reached out slowly and shook his shoulder gently.

All three of the others reacted as he screeched at the touch and flipped around, tumbling off the bed to the floor for about the fifth time that day. He whined as he yanked his covers and him and pushed himself into the wall, his brown eyes wide and flickering back and forth.

"Mater come see pet?" he gasped, and not seeing him, looked at the three new people in the room.

Urahara kneeled down. "I'm sorry, Ichigo, your friends are here."

Ichigo looked up at them and shook his head. "Pet has no friends, no friends for pet, master says."

"Ichigo, you have friends, remember?" Urahara said gently.

Ichigo pulled his knees to his chest. "Master punish pet for friends, no," he said, looking around again.

"Ichigo, we're going to see if you can remember them, okay? Like earlier? Can you do that?" Urahara said softly.

The orangette shook his head, and started slapping his head. "No, no memory, gone, all gone. Master said no memory."

Urahara wanted to reach out and grab his hand but knew better. He didn't want him to hurt himself. "We're going to try anyway."

He motioned the others over who were very still and shocked. "One at a time, okay?"

Inoue kneeled down first staring at him, her eyes brimming already. She started to reach out, but he flinched away violently, slamming the back of his head to the wall. She drew back her hand as though it had been burned. "Kurosaki-kun?" she whispered.

He looked up and stared at her, his eyes wide and flickering back and forth over her. "Please, Kurosaki-kun, you remember me?" He was still, though, putting a hand to his neck unconsciously, feeling for the collar that should have been there.

"In-in…" he stammered then started hitting his head again, rocking. "No, no, don't say that name, no don't say that name, punish pet for saying that name…bad pet."

Urahara looked at Inoue then waved Ishida forward. Ishida couldn't believe his eyes. Ichigo was thin and drawn, starved it seemed, and bruises covered every inch of exposed flesh or cuts and scars. He frowned as he saw him drumming his fingers across his knees.

"Good grief, Urahara-san, how many times have his hands been broken?" he whispered, seeing how oddly all of his fingers sat.

Urahara sighed. "We're not sure. But every bone in his hands has been broken at least once or twice. In fact, I'm not sure there's a bone on him that hasn't been fractured, but I haven't gone over the bone scans in detail yet. We do know he's missing two of his lower ribs, one from each side."

Ishida looked at him in earnest, and saw the absolute blankness in his eyes. "Ichigo? Do you know me?"

He stared at the raven haired friend, frowning and then reached out, touching his sleeve, tugging at it, making the Quincy cross fall out and dangle. He stared at it, head tilted, and for a second, Ishida swore a flicker of recognition crossed his face, then he snapped his hand back and chewed on the nail. "No, no, don't say that name, Rukia-sama teach pet, bad pet."

Ishida stood and moved back, allowing Chat to kneel, Chad who was one of his oldest friends. Chad unhooked the coin around his neck and held it out to Ichigo. Ichigo reached forward tentatively and looked at it, fingers hovering over it until he touched it. "Ch-ch-chado…" he whispered staring at it then again snapped his hand back. "No, bad pet, don't say that name, bad pet, punish pet again…"

He covered his head and rocked back and forth. Urahara sighed. "Ichigo, what does master do to you?"

He looked up and blinked slowly. "Master punish pet. Master teach pet. Master love pet."

"Ichigo, what do those things mean?" he continued, finding this one of the more lucid times, and despite the three who were behind him, he couldn't let the chance to receive information.

"Master teach," he said and pointed to a large bruise on his arm, and a couple thick scars. "Master teach pet to be good pet. Rukia-sama teach pet."

Urahara nodded. "So he would hurt you when he did this? He cut you and hit you?"

He shook his head. "Master teach!"

"And what else, Ichigo?" he asked quietly.

"Master punish bad pet," he said softly. "Renji-sama punish bad pet."

Urahara had a horrible clenching in his chest. "Why didn't Rukia-sama punish you?"

He looked at him for a moment. "Rukia-sama can't punish, only teach. Unable."

He was looking around desperately. "Is master mad? Master is mad. Pet's collar is gone. Master punish pet for it," he whispered, looking for his master.

"Ichigo, please, you have no master, you're safe now," Urahara said with an exasperated sigh. "And Rukia and Renji are your friends, remember?"

He looked at him. "No! No friends for pet, no friends for monsters, monsters are dirty, monsters are disgusting, monsters are used, trash," he whispered, beginning to rock back and forth. "Master said that monsters need to be punished."

"Ichigo, you aren't a monster," Inoue said softly. "You never have been."

He looked at them, shaking his head violently, as if trying to dislodge the thought. "No, can't…can't…hurts to try, hurts to try…can't think…"

Urahara stood up. "Okay, Ichigo, that's enough for now. Will you let me get you into bed? I'll have to touch you to do it."

He looked up with wide eyes and thought about it, then stared at the hat. "Hat and clogs…friend…" he muttered.

"That's it, Ichigo, that's it, here, take my hand," he said holding it out to the shaking boy's.

He took it, flinching backward at first. Then gripped it and Urahara pulled him up to stand, his knees nearly buckling under him as the covers slipped down. He'd been dressed in loose shorts and a loose shirt, but the shorts rode low on his hips, and there was an audible gasp from Inoue as her eyes fell on the still deep purple bruises on his hip, large finger marks in the flesh blossoming out. He wobbled slightly as Urahara led him to the bed. He sat down and Urahara gently pushed his shoulder to let him lay flat. He stared at the ceiling, then rolled over, curling up on himself, pulling his knees to his chest and clutching the pillow.

"How did he live through this?" Ishida said, his eyes on his back now, striped with various degrees of healing bandages, some coming loose, others soaked through already. The bruising on his lower back was even more apparent in that position, extending up from the band of the shorts he was wearing. Ishida stared at his legs, chewing his lip as he could see the distinct striping of healed burns.

Urahara dropped the cover over him, and he grabbed it and pulled it tight. He resisted the urge to touch his head, only swallowing and walking out, the others following him to be met by Unohana on the outside of the room.

"You did good, Urahara-san. Each bit of information is helpful, and I don't know what will be left once we get the cuffs off," she said. "I'm sure now we can remove them, but I'm not sure what will be left when we do."

Inoue looked at her with pleading eyes. "Will my power help?"

Unohana looked at her. "Why don't you come with me and we'll try some testing on it and see what will work best for us."

She led her away, leaving the two teens with Urahara. Ishida cleared his throat.

"What are the chances of him recovering?" he said softly.

Urahara sighed. "Not very good, Ishida-san."

They looked up as Byakuya came up. Despite the stoic expression, both the teens could feel he was furious. "What have we found out, Urahara-san?"

Urahara sighed. "I think I've deciphered what some of the things he's saying might mean. He keeps saying that he was punished by you and Renji, but he was taught by you and Rukia, saying Rukia couldn't punish. When asked what that meant, he indicated the bruises and cuts to be teaching. But he wasn't terrified of it. He is terrified of being punished. And considering that Rukia can't do it…I'm sure you can guess what that means."

Byakuya bit his lip, and nodded. "So when he says that…" he tapered off, not even able to continue the thought. "How often did this 'punishment' occur, has Unohana determined the extent?"

Urahara sighed. "She estimates daily, perhaps more, due to the amount of current and healed damage. The amount of internal scarring is pretty severe."

Urahara noticed the clenched fists at the side of Byakuya. "He used me to do _that_ to him. Me."

If it weren't such a serious situation, the image of Byakuya as a wild tempered young man flashed through his mind. "He did, and I don't know how we're going to get him to see you in any other way. Your image, your voice, is melded so deeply with his concept of his master that it may never be possible to convince him any different."

"Master?" came a soft voice from the doorway down the hallway. Byakuya looked up to see Ichigo standing in the doorway, staring at him wide eyed.

Urahara gasped. He'd been asleep, he was sure of it, before he'd even covered him with the sheets. Ichigo ran toward Byakuya and dropped to his knees, gasping at the legs of his hakama, burying his face into the fabric.

"Master is mad at pet!" he cried out. "Punish pet, bad pet, master!"

Byakuya gulped, feeling the hands gripping his legs. "Ichigo, please, stop!" he said, perhaps too loudly, because he looked up, eyes wide and full of tears. "Master is mad! Pet punish." he gasped and dropped his eyes but began to press more into Byakuya's legs, hands reaching up and groping through his hakama, grasping his crotch.

Byakuya's eyes couldn't have widened any more as he pushed Ichigo back, blinking. "What are you doing?"

"Punish pet, master, master mad…" he said, looking up confused.

Urahara kneeled down and took Ichigo's hand like he had earlier. "Ichigo, Byakuya does not want to do that to you anymore."

Ichigo looked like he was about to hyperventilate. "But…but…master doesn't want pet! Pet was too bad, master send pet away now…"

Urahara grabbed a healer walking by. "Bring me Unohana-taichou, quickly!"

He tried to calm the gasping and panicking boy, but to no avail as he cried out and beat his hands on his head. Unohana came out and blinked at the scene and frowned toward Byakuya but noticing the horrified look on his face, she opted to not give him the stare of death she was well known for. She kneeled down and pressed a hand to his head. He was too panicked to realize he was being touched before the kido washed over him and slumped into Urahara's arms. He returned him to his bed and came back.

"If we don't do something soon, there's going to be no saving him," Urahara said, sighing.

There was silent agreement. Unohana sighed. "Have you and Kurotsuki-taichou come up with anything for the cuffs other than my plan?"

"We may have. But to do it we're going to have to put him into a death state, which is in itself risky if we can't revive him. Removing them while he's 'alive' will rip apart the entire nervous system. But it feeds on his energy, so if he is technically 'dead', they will no longer be active, and I should be able to extract them. But we have to do it quickly. I'd like to have Orhime-san on hand to heal his arms once I take them off. Then we'll need to access how much organic brain damage there has been. I'm hoping though that once his inner hollow can become active, he may be of some assistance healing it. He has instant regeneration from what Shinji has said," Urahara said softly.

Unohana nods. "But won't the cuffs feed off the ambient energy and everyone else's reiatsu?"

He nodded. "They would, but I intend to do this within a dampening field."

"How will I help heal him, if I can't use my powers?" Inoue asked softly.

Urahara nodded to her. "You will be outside the field, with your flower fairies ready. The moment I have extracted the cuffs, Mayuri drops the field and you heal the wounds left from them, and bring him back from the brink. I'm hoping that your shield is strong enough to pull this off, but we have no choice now. If he doesn't get some function of his mind back…"

They all understood the unspoken words. Urahara left to contact Mayuri. They waited, and he came back and said they were set to begin first thing in the morning. With that, they all went to rest the best they could. Not that it was very good rest.

The morning came far too soon. The area was set up and preparations made. Unohana kept him asleep as she stood outside the shielded area Urahara and Mayuri had set up. Renji, Rukia, Chad and Ishida had all insisted on being there, and surprisingly Byakuya as well. Inoue stood ready beside the squad four captain.

"Okay, no one, and I mean no one, enter the shielded area, no matter what. The monitors will flat line, and he'll technically be dead for a few moments. And he's going to bleed a lot until Inoue can heal it. I have to make sure that it is deactivated, and contained before he can wake up," Urahara explained.

He took a breath and injected a greenish liquid into Ichigo's arm and picked up a tool to cut the metal with. After a few moments, Ichigo's body jerked spasmotically and the line on the monitor went flat. Urahara counted to ten, then began to cut the metal from his wrists. He winced to see how deeply embedded the metal had become, knowing he was about to pull out muscle tissue with the cuffs. He cut through both of them, rivulets of blood flowing down. He gasped and ripped the first one off, blood spraying all over him as he did so. His stomach lurched to feel it splatter on his face. He groaned, tossing the cursed object to the floor and did the same with the other side, a similar gush of red meeting him. He bit his lip as he picked both cuffs up and deposited them in a sealing container, ignoring the bits of tissue that had clung to them.

"Inoue, now," he gasped, dropping the barrier as she let her sun sun rikia go, covering him with the golden shield.

They all watched the monitors for signs of life returning. Urahara picked up another syringe and plunged the pinkish liquid into his neck. There was a blip on the monitor. Then another. And another. Soon, a slow and steady rhythm beat on the monitor, and his breathing became regular. After nearly an hour, Inoue sank to her knees, the shield shattering. The wounds weren't healed completely, but the blood had quit gushing. Unohana did what she could and wrapped his wrists with thick bandages. He was taken back to a room, and given a twenty four hour watch. Now, they could only wait.


	4. Chapter 4 - Spiraling

_A/N: WARNINGS: Descriptoins of torture. Skip the section indicated if you don't want to see it. And I'm using Shiro, and damn he's got a dirty mouth._

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Spiraling

* * *

Time seemed to tick by slowly as various people took up watches, two hours at a time. Rukia realized very quickly what an impact the orange haired shinigami substitute on the people of soul society. He seemed to be stable, from what they could tell, but Unohana said she could detect no change in the activity of his brain. Once he regained consciousness, Inoue would try to do what she could, but there were no guarantees. No one knew exactly what would happen when he awoke. And before they knew it, two weeks had passed with no changes. His body had begun to heal fully, and the healing teams of the fourth set about doing what they could to correct the mis-mended bones throughout his body. The worst had been his hands. Finally, after almost a week of intense healing, they manage to return them to a somewhat normal state. It was a blessing he had slept through the bone mending procedures, though. They would have been painful.

His wrists had been another story. Even after Inoue's magic, they had wept blood for several days, and it had taken her several times to get them to heal. Luckily, her magic sealed the wounds and removed almost all scars. Except these. No matter what she did, the scars on his forearms would not go away. The skin was different, distinct scar tissue. She didn't understand it. Finally, he was fully healed, a combination of Inoue's tireless work and the healers of squad four. But still, his mind was not functioning correctly yet, those parts of his brain that had been affected by the cuffs still refused to light up with activity.

They were not, of course, able to witness the internal struggle.

Inner World

Zangetsu was tired still. He could barely maintain his own form in the inner world. And that world was now an ocean with nothing in it. Rain poured from the blackened sky. And Zangetsu didn't care, he just wanted to sleep. Strange for a zanpakuto to feel like this. And somewhere, he could hear sobbing. But he was too tired to go figure it out. He saw his white companion eventually, stumbling through the air above the ocean. He was already white, but he was sure he would have been pale if it hadn't been for that. He wandered around, staring at his arms where these large scars had appeared.

It took forever of standing beside the old man before he could talk. "Where's the king gone?" he croaked.

Zangetsu likewise took a long time. "No idea. I heard sobbing. I wasn't sure if it was you or him."

"Not me, but I don't feel right. I can't remember…" he muttered, looking around. "What did th' king do?"

Zangetsu was a little clearer. "He's giving up, if we let him."

The white copy shook his head. "Nah, can't let 'im do that."

"Have you searched his memories to find out what happened?" Zangetsu asked.

Again the white copy shook his head. "Nah, can't be that bad, ya?"

Zangetsu blinked slowly. "Maybe you shouldn't look."

The hollow looked at him. "What?"

"You may be better if you don't."

"I will, now," he said and his form dissipated.

Zangetsu swallowed. "I hope he doesn't lose his mind."

(A/N: OKAY if you are Squeamish, skip below until the next author's note. The following contains graphic depiction of torture. Of course, if that puts you off, I'm not sure why you're reading this.)

Spiraling

_Pain, too much to count. The knife was sliding under the skin and to his horror, he looked down to see it being peeled away. The pain was searing and wavering as the skin fell to the side with a plop. He looked up at the grinning Rukia. Why was she grinning? He couldn't even see her eyes, her grin was so wide. This was before the cuffs, this was while he was still fighting._

_"Rukia, why?" he cried out._

_"Ah, ya know, fun," came the answer and the voice, it was Rukia but it was wrong, something wrong with it. "How much skin can I flay before ya pass out?"_

_Again, the searing pain and drip of blood down his legs._

Spiraling

_Renji stood over him. He was still unbroken, snarling and cursing at him as his hands were slammed into the clamps on the floor. He held up a hammer. He stared at him and grinned, slamming it down repeatedly on his struggling hands. Every bone was shattered, every one sending lancing pain throughout his body. And then, his legs were locked at the knees under his chest, and it began again. The pain in his hands didn't eclipse the rest, and by the end he was hoarse from the screams. But he wasn't broken. Not yet. Even then, curled up, nursing his hands against his chest, he wasn't broken, screaming curses at Renji. But was it Renji? That smirk, something about that smirk…_

Spiraling

_He lay still, breath panting in and out. His ankles and wrists were fixed and he was on his stomach. He had lost any shame at the undignified position months ago. His head lolled to the side on the floor. He heard the light footsteps and heard the hiss of the metal. He had stopped begging. He had no voice these days. He was close, so close to doing what they wanted._

_"Call me Rukia-sama," she said, and he felt the heat from the iron as she held it above the backs of his thighs._

_"I'll call you Rukia-bitch," he said softly. Of course, the expected searing of the flesh came, the smell of his own burning skin wafting up, making him retch uncontrollably. One. Two._

_"What is your name?" she asked._

_"Ichigo," he snarled at her. Three, four. Between, she returned it to the fire._

_"No, you are a pet now, you have no name," she said, and the heat returned. Higher, this time, closer to the inside of his thighs._

_"Fuck you, bitch," he whispered. Five, six, seven, eight._

_Eight was his limit. It was then he passed out. He never had been able to last past the eighth touch._

Spiraling

_Standing against the wall, hands tied above his head this time. Byakuya was back, lashing him with a scourge whip, the barbs tearing chunks of flesh away mercilessly. He rested his head against the cold stone, panting. The first lash he'd called him a bastard. The second curse had died on his lips in a scream. The third lash had nearly sent him unconscious. _

_"You are doing well, pet," he said, looking at his handy work._

_"I'm not your fucking pet," he said softly. He was rewarded by a fourth lash._

_"You are nothing but a worthless hollow that deserves death. You are lucky I allow you to live here and don't kill you," he said running fingers up and down Ichigo's spine._

_"Kill me, I'd rather be dead," he said. Fifth lash, and he barely had the strength to flinch._

_The whip fell, and his legs were kicked apart. "You won't be dead, you'll be punished."_

_Somehow he found the strength to scream again._

Spiraling

_It was gone, just gone, like filaments of sugar candy on the wind. Blown away. Faces flashed, but they didn't remain solid. It was slipping away. No name, not anymore, it was stripped like his flesh. The world was cruel and he was a sick, diseased thing. If he wasn't he wouldn't be here. Slowly eyes blinked open as he rested on his knees, arms secured above him. Master was back. Didn't master have another name? He couldn't remember anymore. _

_"Hello, pet," he said, kneeling, pushing his chin up to force his eyes to connect._

_"Master…" he said softly._

_He looked down at a damp spot below the bound man. "You made a mess, didn't you?"_

_"Bad pet," he whispered._

_"What do we do with bad pets?" Master said softly._

_"Punish them, master," he whispered as his Master kneeled between his legs to bring his punishment, his pain, and his humiliation._

Spiraling

_"Heal him, freak," a muttered curse in the dark lancing through his head. Why couldn't he see? "Not all the way, just make sure he doesn't die," the voice continued. _

_A needle. Suddenly, pain was amplified, and he realized his eyes were beginning to reconstruct themselves. That's right; it had been tonight's fun, taking his eyes… He vaguely thought that this had happened twice before, the sick pop and slithering feeling down his cheeks. Strange that that part didn't really hurt that much. But he deserved it. He didn't look up when he was told to. That was the result. Of course, at the time, he couldn't look up, but that didn't seem to matter. He should have tried even with his head chained down._

Spiraling

_Master stood over him again, telling him the usual words._

_"Such a dirty monster, pet. Are you a monster, pet?"_

_"Bad monster, Master. Punish me, please," he said softly._

_"Ah that's a good pet. When you're good, I love you."_

_He was at a loss for what the Master wanted. He received a slap. "You've made me angry."_

_"Master?" he asked, as he was forced to his knees._

_"Please your master, and I won't punish you so severely."_

_He did as he was asked, but he was still punished. He wondered if it mattered._

Spiraling

_Sitting alone in the dark, he yanked at his hair again and again, pulling painful clumps loose. The memories they tried to surface. He remembered for a moment who he was, and he punished himself. He had to be punished for such things, even if Master did not know. He glared at his bloody hands. If master couldn't, he had to, he had to. Bad pets had to be punished. But there was a tickle, a terrible tickle, and he whispered hoarsely words that he didn't understand._

_"Kill me, anyone…"_

Spiraling

_The Renji above him was punishing him again. He didn't know why. It had become something that happened each day. Pain and blood. And he deserved it. So much. He kept seeing his name and it meant he needed punishment. He looked into the face, and for a second swore that the eyes looking at him were blue instead of brown. "Kill me," he whispered, and watched as shock and something else twisted the face above him. Hands clasped on his neck and squeezed. Oh this would be it. Then the pressure eased and he was gone. So close._

Spiraling

_"Disgusting creature. Hollow. You are lucky to be our pet, instead of dead. Lucky. Be a good pet."_

_He had a memory flash and whispered, "Inoue?"_

_He was taught so much and punished several times that day. "Do not say such a name."_

_Soon another memory flashed, and in confusion he said softly, "Ishida…"_

_And again, teaching and punishing, ending up with healing from the medical freak before he bled to death. "Do not say such a name."_

_"Monsters don't have friends. If you ever had a friend, they find you vile, dirty, and disgusting now."_

(A/N: Okay, CLEAR!)

Squad Four Infirmary

He was screaming. Screaming and screaming, and nothing could stop the sounds being torn from his throat. It was like a nightmare but it was more. He heard sounds, a lot of sounds and talking. He felt hands and he tried to throw them off, but it didn't work. Finally his back arched and a strangled sound escaped his lips and an eerily familiar white substance began frothing from his mouth and over his face, sending everyone in the room a few steps back, except for two men who moved closer in anticipation. This was, after all, always a possibility.

His body relaxed suddenly and a groan escaped his lips. Along the edges of the room, Inoue, Chad, Ishida, Renji and Rukia all stood, shocked into silence. They'd come running from the front area when they heard the screaming from his room. Unohana stood in the doorway as Shinji and Urahara watched carefully.

"Fuck!" came the guttural reply as Ichigo moved to sit up, his hands on his head. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!" The voice was not his own, however. It was different, and Byakuya, who had just walked up beside Unohana stiffened, knowing that voice all too well.

Ichigo, who was not Ichigo lifted his head up and stared around the room. His face was half covered with a hollow mask, and his eyes were black sclera with brilliant gold pupils. His eyes fixed on Byakuya.

"Fuck you and yer pansy ass sword," he snarled and then looked around. "Fuck every one of ya fuckin' assholes!"

No one moved. "Two fuckin' years, two fuckin' years, FUCK!" he exclaimed, running hands through Ichigo's orange hair.

His eyes flashed back and forth. "The fuck happened in here?" he muttered. "Fuck! What fucked with his head? I can't even tell what fuckin' did it! I got fuckin' flashes of shit I don't want to see, and that's all, everything's fuckin' _gone. _Fuck, king!"

Urahara put a hand on Ichigo's. "I assume you are Ichigo's hollow half?"

"Who the fuck else would I be?" he snapped.

He looked at Shinji. "You fuckers, you fuckers and yer shit. I could fuckin' kill you bunch! I wish I'da taken' yer fuckin' head off when we fought the last time!"

"Ah, I don't think we can call you Ichigo, do you have another name?" Urahara interrupted.

He thought. "No, but what the fuck, call me Shiro I guess."

"Well, Shiro, while I would prefer to see Ichigo in control, as you can tell by the state of his mind, that's difficult right now," Urahara said softly.

"No fuckin' shit!" Shiro exclaimed. He thought for a while then his eyes flashed up between Byakuya, Renji and Rukia. "The fuck. Why do I see you three in his memories? Why the fuck would you do this shit to him?"

Urahara could see the anger building as the reiatsu in the room sent a couple healers in the hallway to their knees. "Shiro, Shiro, listen, do you remember who put the sealing bracelets on you, remember?"

Shiro thought. "In my memories," he said, thinking. "Fuckin' Aizen. And his fuckin' piece of shit sword. The first sealing bracelets didn't seal me away altogether, I could still see, feel, a little. I felt when that fucker pulled that shitty sword on us. Then, he slapped a stronger set and I've been fuckin' floating in water for the last two fuckin' years. But there was one moment, one moment…yeah, I fuckin' remember, connecting for a moment and screaming myself hoarse at king to run like a mother fucker, but then it was sealed again and shit it _hurt_ that time, even I felt that shit."

Urahara nodded. "That's when he put the second set, the ones we removed from you."

Shiro frowned down at the massive scar tissue on his forearms. "Fuck, so that's where that shit came from."

"What do you mean?" Urahara asked.

"It showed up on my arms a while ago, my poor purty white arms all fucked up with this shit…" Shiro said with a mock pout.

"Is there anything you can tell us from what you've got from his memories?" Urahara said.

Shiro shrugged. "Hold on." He closed his eyes, exploring.

He gasped suddenly. "Sadistic fuckers," he muttered.

"What is it?" Urahara pressed.

Shiro looked around. "Okay, so he fuckin' took cherry blossom pussy there's form. Aizen did anyway. The fucker with the blue hair, fuckin' Grimmjow took Red's face over there. And that fuckin' fox faced bastard took the midget's face. The rest of them just kinda showed up whoever. The only one that really messed with him was when fuckin' green eyed bastard showed up as that little white captain. Feels like his fuckin' heart broke after that one…dammit Ichigo, ya didn't even try ta fight him, did ya?"

There was a hushed silence for a moment. "Fuckin' bubblegum pink scientist that could put Kurotsuki to shame kept him alive. Shoulda died a lot. But they wouldn't let him."

He picked up his hands and examined them slowly. "Ya know, it fuckin' hurts like a bitch when someone takes a fuckin' hammer to your hands. I got that much. Didn't feel any better the second time, either."

Urahara cringed at the thought. "Anything else you can remember? Did Ichigo have any idea that they weren't who they appeared to be?"

"Kind of, he remembered thinking that Byakuya didn't smile, and that Renji shouldn't be smirking like he was. But it was all fuckin' foggy from the pain and haze he was in. Maybe some drugs from that freak, he was out of it a lot, or that might be whatever the fucker did up here. Feels like someone took a fuckin' sledge hammer to his brain..."

Rukia moved up. "Can you fix it? Whatever is wrong in his mind?"

Shiro looked at her. "Ya sure ya want me to, midget? I do that, he's gonna fuckin' remember every detail, relive that shit. No fog, no nothing. Fuckin' bell clarity. All of it. Not just the flashes that sent my hollow ass to screamin' bloody murder. We're talking all two years."

"What happens if you don't repair it?" Inoue said softly.

"Well, he's never going to be able to act like he did. From what I tell, fuck, he'll have the head of a…ah…five year old if we're fuckin' lucky," he said, eyes rolling around in his head like he was literally examining the brain. Too fuckin' much damage. Whole damn higher functions are gone. Like fuckin' _gone. _Shit, what the fuck, man, this is some twisted shit," Shiro said with a frown. "Fuck it, I can't fuckin' live in a kid's head. I'm a fuckin' pervert, and that's just nasty. Try not to freak the fuck out, okay? I gotta go all the way into hollow form to pull this shit off. He ain't capable of stopping me. But give me a fuckin' minute before you try killin' my ass."

Before anyone could say anything, He closed his arms and reiatsu burst out so broadly that everyone in the area that hadn't attained shikai was knocked flat to the ground with the massive reiatsu outpouring. Even the captains shivered, and within minutes the sound of multiple flash steps filled the room with a sea of white coated captains around the outside of the glass room. Byakuya held up a hand.

Inside, Shiro had stood up, his head thrown back, as his skin faded out to pure white, a hollow hole erupting in the center of his chest, black lines pouring out to cover the skin. The half mask quickly turned into a full horned mask, his hands and feet shifted into the clawed counterparts. His hair blasted outward and down his back, and orange colored cuffs flared on his wrists. The outpouring receded back into him with a slam. Shiro lifted his hand and curled his clawed black nails and looked around. The tension was thick.

"The fuck, ain't ya seen a vasto lorde before? What'd you think my ass was?" his voice was distorted. "Now keep fuckin' quiet, and don't fuckin' get near me or yer ass will get fried while I'm in here fixin' shit."

He closed his glowing eyes and stared upward. A black reiatsu flared around him, encasing him in black. He was still aside from the thrumming of the energy. He stepped backward, almost falling. He held onto whatever he was doing. A snarl erupted from his mouth.

"Stop it, fuck, Ichigo, stop fighting me!" he growled out. "Let…me…fix…it!"

Shiro stumbled back again. "Dammit! Put that shit to use on someone else! Fuck, Zangetsu!"

He panted for a second then stood up again. "Thanks, Zangetsu," he murmured with a sigh. "Hang on to him, this gonna get worse, old man."

There was a long moment of whipping reiatsu around him. "Shut up, fuck, king! Don't fuckin' wimp out on me, or I'm fuckin' takin' over and makin' you the fuckin' horse! Don't give me that shit, ya ain't gonna do that, or I will fuckin' kick yer ass…"

He sighed and opened his eyes, staring around at the others. "Watch him. Close. He's broke as fuck now. And he might not want to keep going."

The mask evaporated, and he fell to his knees, the features of the hollow slowly receeding, the sick white skin going last of all. Urahara caught him easily, and lifted him back on the bed. He was still out, but when Urahara pried open an eye, they were thankfully brown again. He sighed. After a few tests, it was confirmed that any remaining injuries had healed. Though scarring had remained behind. His brain seemed to be functioning, other than still being unconscious.

People filed out, seeing the threat was seemingly over. Urahara sat down beside him, taking a hand. He looked up at the five that remained. "I have a feeling, the worst is yet to come."


	5. Chapter 5 - Drowning

_A/N: Okay so every review like totally gets you new chapters. I'm so nutty right? Anyway, here you go. Some flashbacks in here. Not as much as last chapter though._

_And I am still torn on the pairing. I've never done a ByaIchi or a ToshiroIchi, so those are possibilities since I've hinted at both. But not sure. ShiroIchi is also possible, but well he can be combined with anyone._

* * *

**Chapter Five**

Drowning

* * *

Ichigo's brain hurt. A lot. And he didn't want to open his eyes. He had been enjoying the warmth of the water he'd been floating inside. It had been comforting, holding him in a tight embrace that felt good for a change. He hadn't been inside his inner world in so long, and getting lost inside it was such a temptation. But he hadn't been allowed to. Something, or rather, someone had forced him out. He was angry; he just wanted to rest and forget, his body on autopilot. Forgetting what he'd been reduced to, screaming and flailing at the edges of his mind as his body obeyed the commands it was given. His voice saying things he couldn't stand as he screamed and cried out to stop, to shut up!

He vaguely remembered a sea of faces trying to reach him, but the blockade, the place that his consciousness had been locked into, kept him screaming and flailing at the walls, unable to reach the form of the people he wanted to touch. Because that had been what had happened.

Those cuffs, those horrid things, sealing away everything he was. Pushing the hollow and Zangetsu deeper, and he couldn't even tell if they still existed. He had felt his brain exploding. And his consciousness, his very soul, tried to reach out and stop the shattering, but there was a barrier, a black barrier tinged with red. He realized that it was the hollow half. He'd erected a barrier to protect Ichigo's soul. If he hadn't, that bright lightning that was slowly devouring pieces of his brain would have done the same to his soul. He knew that was the intent, to turn him into little more than a gigai. And he knew, he _knew_, as much as this was to break him, it was also to break everyone who had ever been a part of his life.

But flailing madly at the barrier, watching with horror, that was the worst. A tiny box, and he felt the lightning shoot around it now and then, threatening to break the walls and consume him. And to his horror, it was beginning to crack. The shell was cracking on all sides. When it did, his consciousness would come bubbling through and he knew he'd several times begged for death when it happened. Being subjected to the beatings, the abuse, the sexual horrors, that was one thing. But to know he was _asking_ even _begging_ for them to punish him, which only meant to rape him again, his self identified, it made him want to die so badly. And for a minute, he thought the person punishing him would do just that.

The cracks were bad now, and he was going to lose himself soon, he knew. Whatever immense power the hollow, and perhaps Zangetsu too, had poured into creating this small sanctuary of hell for him was fading over time. The walls were thinner. At first, he couldn't see, only sense what was happening. Then they'd grown thinner and thinner, now transluscent, and he watched through his own eyes.

But then he was looking up into Master…no not Master, Byakuya! And screaming, oh he was screaming in terror, and he almost broke his protective shell to scream at him that he wasn't the Master. He knew the master was Aizen. He remembered, at least this piece of him did. He saw through the illusion. Every single time from his protected space, he saw through it. At first, he had believed him, but then the cuffs, they'd sealed him and the illusion was only visible to his physical soul form, not the soul that was secreted away. And the look in Renji's eyes, the absolute horror as he realized that his friend was scared of him…

He could do nothing, though. If he broke the barriers, he'd be consumed by the lightning that was licking around his small, protected space. And then what his hollow had done would be for nothing. He glimpsed the faces, and he cringed at the tears in eyes he didn't want to see cry and he could do nothing. The pain was too much, though. He wasn't sure how much he could take. The glimpses of the tortures, they were gone as soon as he saw them. He saw them, was disgusted, and they were gone. Just like these faces. One second he knew them, the next he didn't. It was breaking, he knew that was why. He saw the light leaking into the small box, lashing at him painfully, trying to rip apart what remained of the soul. His tenuous hold on sanity was slipping.

Then the light was gone and the barrier shattered, and he was falling. Was he dead, finally? It felt that way. Maybe he'd be a soul reaper again once his soul passed to soul society. But wait, would it even do that? He was in soul form, not his body. Ah, it didn't matter, as long as it was over. He felt warm and it was quiet. Then just as suddenly, water rushed in around him and he was in the sanctity of his inner world. He could feel the hollow and Zangetsu. He had no idea what had happened, but he was numb and he wanted to stay that way.

Then it felt like he was being flooded with things he didn't want to see. His eyes flew open and he started to rip apart the walls of memory. He heard his hollow screaming at him to stop. But he didn't want him to stop. He didn't want to remember. He wanted to stay here, in the water, forever, and just…

He felt arms encasing him as he fought weakly and he looked up to see he was in the impassive embrace of Zangetsu. He writhed, and screamed curses at his hollow half and the zanpakuto spirit. How could they do this to him? He didn't want to remember! He didn't want to connect Byakuya's face with this, or Rukia, Renji, Toshiro, Ukitake… The faces and the pain flooded him. His friends, the captains he'd fought and those he now trusted, stripping away every shred of dignity he had left. He screamed. It wasn't them, but it was them! He fought the spirit that held him in an iron like grip. Matsumoto's face laughing at him, Yumichika screaming at him as he sliced through his stomach with the three pronged sword…Ikkaku piercing his hands one on top the other with the spear like zanpakuto of his to hold him in place….

He swore insanity would claim him in the flood of memories, two years of memories, crashing into him within a span of moments. He desperately clung to the fact that it wasn't them, couldn't be them, he wasn't a monster, they knew it, he knew it.

But what if he was? What if they did think that? What if they despised him as a disgusting creature? And now even more? Dirty and wrong and broken? Wasn't he supposed to protect the ones he loved, not end up like this? Broken, quivering and hurt?

"I'll kill myself!" he screamed, receiving a rebuke from the hollow. He didn't know where it came from, deep within him. If they weren't going to let him die from the shame and humiliation, perhaps ending this pitiful excuse for an existence would work better. Then Zangetsu let him go. He was too week to do anything, the walls of memory, crashing into him with force had left him laying weak in the waters of his world.

"It has to be this way, Ichigo," the spirit said, kneeling beside him. "You have to remember to heal and become who you still are, even if you can't tell it yet."

So here he was blinking at the low lights in the room, his breath quickening suddenly. He felt someone stir beside him, and he instinctively shrank back from them.

"Ichigo?" a familiar voice whispered, and he turned, his eyes frantically searching the room and landing on a familiar white and green striped hat.

"Ichigo, say something so I know you're there," he said, leaning forward.

Ichigo flinched away, though not as violently as Urahara had previously seen. "Getabishi," he whispered softly, hands curling into the sheets at his throat, eyes wide.

Urahara let a breath out he wasn't sure he was holding. "You remember me? Do you remember who you are?" It was a funny question, since he'd just said his name twice.

But perhaps not. Ichigo stared at him and opened his mouth. "Pet?" he queried the shook his head as though dislodging the thought. "No…no…"

"It's okay, it will come back," Urahara said, reaching tentatively toward him, only to pull his hand back as he flinched away again. "No one here is going to hurt you. I know you're confused, but you're here, in the fourth division in soul society."

A panicked look crossed his face as he looked around. "Remember, Ichigo, it wasn't here, you were with Aizen. He made you think you were here."

Ichigo chewed thoughtfully on his lip. Why had things seemed so clear inside his inner world? Now they were muddled, and he had two sets of things in his head trying to vie for dominance over each other. The overwhelming need to cower and submit as the pet he had become, and the defiant man he had been at the beginning of the ordeal.

"I know," he whispered, looking around, despite the statement, his body was still held close and hardly moving. "I know but I don't know, I know but not…"

Before he knew it, his eyes were filled with tears at the confusion tearing at his head. He reached both hands up to his hair and started pulling violently at it, as though the act would jar something loose in his head. He felt the strands yanking out by the roots and felt the pleasure jet through him at the pain. It was twisted and horrible but he wanted it so bad. That pain…

Urahara grabbed his wrists despite the flinches and pulled his hands out of his hair, thick strands clutched in his hands where he'd yanked pieces out. He stared at Urahara, terrified at the feeling of being touched, especially on his wrists and he screamed, yanking his hands away and tumbling in a heap from the bed, clutching desperately at the covers he'd drug with him from the bed. He was panting and nearly hyperventilating when he looked up to see the dark haired fourth captain rest fingers against his forehead, and before he could protest he'd fallen under the sleeping kido.

She looked at Urahara's face. She smiled softly, gathering him up and putting him back in the bed. "Believe it or not, Urahara-san, it is a good sign that his mind is returning. He's confused; we just have to keep telling him that we know what is going on. And give him time."

Urahara nodded, looking at the sleeping face. He looked up as Renji entered, relieving him for the evening. It still amazed Urahara how many people had been touched by the human, now no longer a ryoka.

"He woke up," he said to Renji softly, and watched his eyes widen. "It wasn't as good as we'd hope, he's confused, but it looks like he's caught between the two things, what he was trained into and the real one. He's going to go through a lot of things, Renji. And be prepared. He might lash out at you, or himself."

He stood and left the red head with Ichigo. He knew how much he'd been hurt, finding out that Ichigo had been hurt using his image. He came every night, for two hours, to sit with him. Despite having to continue with his duties as the fukutaichou of sixth division. He hadn't missed a beat, though, even if he was a little weary around the edges. Rukia was standing outside the doorway, watching. Urahara placed a hand on her shoulder. "Go in with him," he said softly and left quietly.

Rukia nodded and went to stand beside Renji, wrapping a hand gently in his. He didn't look up as he watched Ichigo's breath rise and fall.

"Why, Rukia?" he said softly. "I mean, of all of us, why him?"

Rukia shook her head, her hand tightening, and fingers intertwining with Renji's. "I don't know. You saw as I did. That power he has hidden inside him. I…I think he might be someone Aizen fears. And he knows that if he waits, he might defeat him completely."

She heard Renji's voice become tighter, obviously fighting the urge to cry. "Why not kill him? Why do this…"

"Because of what is happening right now throughout soul society," she said softly.

Renji looked up to see her violet eyes tearing up again. "I know."

"I don't think there's a single division that can get it out of their mind. That Aizen took someone that even the head captain may fear, and broke him like…like some sort of toy. If he can do that, and drive this much fear and anguish into our very hearts… He wants us to know that fighting him is hopeless. That's what it is," Rukia said with a sigh, looking up to see her brother standing in the doorway.

"Nii-sama, what are you doing here at this hour? You should be asleep," she said, not bothering to disentangle her hand from Renji's, perhaps not realizing the intimate position their hands has acquired as they spoke.

Byakuya looked down at the now healed substitute shinigami. "I came to see how he was."

Renji swallowed. "Urahara-san said he woke up for a minute, confused about what's real and what isn't. We're still not sure exactly how he's managed to come through it. Kurotsuki-taichou was talking to Unohana-taichou and was telling her the extent of what those cuffs were made to do. It wasn't supposed to destroy just his mind, but to eventually destroy the soul of the person wearing them. Completely tear it apart, he said. Even for Kurotsuki-taichou, he said it was perhaps one of the most sadistic and disgusting devices he'd ever encountered."

Byakuya nodded, seeing that the red scar tissue was still visible on both forearms. "Just how deeply they had been embedded into his arms was evidence of that," he said.

They remained like that for a long time, until the night was once again shattered as much as the orange haired shinigami in front of them.

_Swirling pain._

_"You enjoy the pain, pet?" a husky whisper._

_"Yes, Master," the conditioned response to the body over his back pressing him into the wall._

_"Here, pet," he said softly, handing him a knife. "You can do it yourself, pet. This is how I show my love, pet. Teach yourself. And if you are bad, punish yourself."_

_A hitched breath. One hand flat to the wall, the other holding the glittering knife. He stared at it. He had the power to do this now? A flare welled in his stomach. He had power now. Not just them. He smiled. "Pet can teach," he whispered. "Pet can punish."_

_He took the silver knife and began to cut lines into his forearms. He was in control! He screamed as the Master came closer to finishing his punishment. It still hurt after so many times. But he focused on the blood running down his arms, and switched hands to do the same to the other. He would have cut all the way to his wrists, but his cuffs covered them. He settled for stopping at the top of them, and winding the blade up again._

_"You like that pet?" Master whispered, slamming into him hard enough to bounce his face off the wall, then shivered as he felt that same sensation. He pulled away. "Have fun, sweet pet. This is my love."_

_Long into the night, the blood dripped. And come morning, the pale form was given more to replace the lost amount. The knife was left within easy reach, though, of the chained pet._

All three had managed to seat themselves and wait out the night, or until Ikkaku came to relieve Renji. All those who sat watch were volunteers. No one was required to do this, if they had not, a fourth division person would be sitting watch. But knowing that he had been put through what he had, they wanted to show him that it had not been them. That they cared about him, that he was their friend.

Ikkaku rubbed his eyes as he entered the room to find Rukia and Renji slumped against each other. He grinned as he saw their hands entwined. About damn time, he thought to himself. Leave it to Kurosaki to finally get those two to realize how they felt about each other. Then he realized that Byakuya was slumped in another seat in the corner. He shook his head, and then heard the fractured sound coming from the patient. It wasn't a scream per say, but more like a shaky groaning sound.

He dropped his hand hard onto Renji's shoulder who started, nearly running his head into Rukia who gave a surprised shout. They both blinked and saw Ikkaku standing over them. He gestured to the orangette who was beginning to writhe on the bed, locked into some kind of memory or dream.

"Ah, where did it go?" he muttered, his hands blindly fumbling around the bed in his sleep. "Master took it!" He seemed distraught at whatever was missing. "Ah, master took his love," he whined, thrashing his head back and forth. "Pet teaches, must teach, must…"

By now Byakuya had stood up, unsure whether to stay in the room or not. Then he watched as too his horror, he took one hand and began slicing into his arms with the nails, sending thick trails of blood down them. He kept muttering about teaching, teaching before he had to punish himself, and there was a collective gasp as he changed to the other side, digging nails deep into the flesh of his arm. Byakuya was frozen in place, not because of the fact he was doing this in his sleep, and not waking up, but he look of absolute bliss on his face.

He looked up to see Unohana come in, eyes tired, with Ikkaku trailing behind her. Byakuya hadn't noticed when he left. Unohana frowned as she saw the blood starting to soak the sheets but pressed fingers to his head again, a light surrounding him, and he slumped, now in a very deep sleep, hands, dropping to his stomach.

Byakuya stared at him. "He was pleased when he was doing that, why was he enjoying cutting himself like that?"

Unohana sighed, wrapping the bleeding wounds quickly. "Kuchiki-taichou, you have to remember, the only touches he's received for two years have been painful ones. To him, the only way he received interaction was through hurting him. He's been deprived of human interaction for all intents and purposes. As much as he fears touching others, he craves it, but until he can stand to be touched for others…I fear this self-injurious behavior may continue. And it may become drastically worse."

Byakuya looked down. "What are our options? We can't let this continue, and staying here…"

"We can't send him home, the human world is going to be too much of a shock, and his other human friends seeing him like this would damage his hold on reality. It may be of benefit to place him in the world he was tortured in, to show him that it is not a danger to him," she said thoughtfully.

Rukia nodded. "So we should take him home with us to Kuchiki manor? Won't that damage him more, to be there?"

Unohana sighed. "It may. Or it may accelerate the healing process, forcing him to face the reality instead of the illusion that Aizen created."

Byakuya nodded. "I'll have my healers put on alert and prepare a room for him. Rukia, can you handle the rest here? We should move him awake if possible."

"Agreed," Unohana said. "I'll leave the sleeping kido on him for now, and then wake him when you return."

Byakuya headed to his home slowly, not sure if this was the right thing to do. But something clenched at his chest when he looked at the broken shell that remained of the vibrant young man that had fought him nearly to death, and still stood up against Aizen. Now, he looked aged beyond anything. The youth that had held him was completely gone. In two short years, the vibrant young man had aged tenfold.

He summoned his head healer, who despite being bleary eyed was given the situation. He straightened immediately, and called one of the female healers who specialized in traumatic situations. To their luck, her services had been rarely needed. But now it would appear, her work would be cut out for her.

"Kuchiki-sama, how badly was he traumatised?" she asked softly, glancing at the team that had come with her. "I mean, I will need to know what was done…"

Byakuya nodded, "I'll bring you the full report in the morning, but the important issues are that he was captive for two years and endured endless torture, burning, cutting, broken bones, to name a few."

"Were there any sexual assaults involved?" she asked, her face down as she scribbled notes.

Byakuya's words caught for a second. "Yes."

She looked up, brow cocked waiting for elaboration. "Severity, number?"

"Severe to leave internal damage and scarring, and as often as daily from what we've gathered and the amount of damage."

Despite being accustomed to dealing with situations of severe physical trauma, soul society was rather unused to dealing with this type. The reason that Hinata had taken the training to specialize in dealing with victims of sexual assault had to do with watching her own sister descend to suicide in the Rukon district after a violent assault. She was well aware of the permanent damage that had nothing to do with outward wounds.

"Anything else?" she said, swallowing a lump in her throat.

Byakuya sighed. "The reason he is coming here is perhaps the most bothersome. Aizen used his hypnosis ability, like the one that convinced us he was dead, to convince him that it was done to him by us, here in Kuchiki manor."

Hinata glared. "You can't bring him here if that's the case, he'll…"

Byakuya held up his hand. "He's had a small breathrough and partially knows what is reality and what was illusion. Unohana-taichou felt that proving to him that the reality is that he is safe here will trigger him breaking free completely from the illusion. There is much more, but at the moment, this is all I can detail, I must rest before I go to retrieve him in the morning."

Morning came too early for the Kuchiki head. Considering what today would entail, he'd left Renji to supervise the division. He swirled out of the room and went to the fourth division where Rukia was waiting at the entrance. He nodded to his little sister, heart clenching again as he thought of Hisana. She was looking rested, so she must have stayed in the fourth division's rooms last night. He himself was impeccable as always. No hair out of place, no sign of distress on his face.

"Nii-sama, you're early. Unohana-taichou will be with him already," she said softly. He looked up to see Urahara standing at the doorway. He nodded to the ex-captain.

He stood outside the glass walls to watch how the fourth captain handled this. She leaned over and pressed fingers to his head, letting a kido wash over him. His wounds had been healed during the night, but there were still pinkish stripes decorating both forearms. His eyes fluttered and he started, shaking violently.

"Shh, Ichigo, it's Unohana, you remember me?" she said softly, her dark eyes searching him.

He looked around nervously and gave a slight nod.

"You are healed enough to leave the fourth division, so we're sending you to stay with some friends here in soul society, okay?" she said softly. He looked scared at the thought but nodded.

"And I'm going to need you to be strong about this even though you won't want to, I need you to break away from the illusion in your mind. So because of that, Kuchiki-taichou has prepared a room for you."

The unbridled fear that crossed his face nearly made her think better of the plan, but just as quickly it faded as the other side of him took over, nodding slowly.

"Before you leave, can you tell Urahara-san and me how you managed to keep your soul intact? Kurotsuki-taichou examined those cuffs, and there should have been nothing left after the time they'd been on you," she said softly, as Urahara came up beside her.

Ichigo stared at his hands, his voice shaky. "Boxed, black box, kept it out, kept me inside…hollow made it, but it was cracking, and some of it got through, and it hurt so much…"

She nodded, looking at Urahara. "It is okay, Ichigo, Urahara is going to walk with you. Can he help you get dressed in this yukata?"

He looked nervously at his mentor and trainer than nodded. Unohana left, and Urahara carefully waited as Ichigo shrugged out of the set of clothes he was wearing. He winced at the deep scarring that even Inoue's healing hadn't completely healed. Of course given more sessions, it might, but she had been too exhausted so had been sent back to the world of the living with Chad and Ishida. He let Urahara hold the clothes for him to get into but he was very careful not to come close to touching him. When that was done, he motioned for him to go in front of him. Urahara desperately hoped that seeing Byakuya and Rukia wouldn't trigger panic. But then, he was there for that reason.


	6. Chapter 6 - Concentration

**Chapter Six**

Concentration

* * *

Surprisingly, there was little on the way to the Kuchiki manor. Ichigo walked fine beside Urahara. His head was bowed and he didn't seem interested in looking at anyone or anything. The bowed posture was so out of place for him. He supposed that the habits would take a long time to break away from. He really wasn't sure how this would go, but he got that breaking the illusion out of his head was the right answer. He just hoped he would be able to bear it.

Then they were at the gates, but Ichigo still gave no reaction. He was quiet, eyes still locked on his shuffling feet. Urahara was stunned that this was the same vibrant individual he had seen six months ago, ready to do what he had to do for Inoue. The gates opened, and they entered and headed to the main house and that was the first flinch. Seeing the manor itself was triggering something. Urahara wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, but somehow he was sure that wouldn't be accepted by him.

Byakuya walked behind them, purposefully keeping himself out of Ichigo's sight, just in case he broke into a panic before they got there. Rukia and Renji both walked beside him, but also out of Ichigo's line of sight. Once he was safely inside, they could try and talk to him, and get him to respond, or at least they hoped.

They were led into a room, just a spare room that had been arranged for Ichigo go use. There was an extra futon as well, because they were under strict orders that he was never to be left on his own. He froze when he looked around. All the rooms were roughly the same, so the idea that Ichigo recognized it from the illusion wasn't far-fetched at all. He shook a little then closed his eyes, trying to clear his head it would seem.

"Not the same," he whispered finally, opening his eyes and looking around in earnest now.

Byakuya let a sigh he hadn't realized he was holding and entered the room cautiously. Ichigo looked up at him, eyes darting back and forth over his face and a shudder passing over him briefly before he gripped one hand in the other.

"Ichigo, would you like to have something to eat? I can have my cooks fix you anything you want," he said softly.

Ichigo blinked and looked around, stopping on each face.

"Pet…I can eat?" he said softly.

Rukia stepped forward slowly, her heart clenching at the words. "Of course, Ichigo, anything you want," she said softly, glancing up at her brother.

"I…I don't have to do anything?" he said again, looking around rapidly, suddenly appearing nervous and clutching his hands together tighter.

Rukia fought the urge to cry. "No, why would you have to do something?"

"P-pets work f-for f-f-food," he whispered, not looking at any of them. "M-master said…only then…b-but he never gave what he p-promised, always took it away…wasn't good enough…"

Byakuya bit his lip almost to the point of bleeding. "Ichigo, you are here as a guest, you can have anything you want to eat."

He looked at Byakuya curiously, trying desperately to separate the vision of the cruel Master from the calm and stoic man before him. "Chocolate?" he said softly, looking up with expectant eyes.

Rukia started to say something about that not being the best thing and Byakuya put a hand on her to stop her. "What do you want made out of chocolate, Ichigo?"

He shook his head, then turned away. He really didn't know. He just wanted proof that this was real. Master would never bring him something like that. And if this person that mirrored the master would bring him something like that, then he would know it wasn't the master staring at him.

He stood, staring out of the room into the open garden until Byakuya came back with a covered tray. It had been hard to get the servants to relinquish the food to him personally, but they relented, allowing him to take it himself. No reason for more people to intrude on him, especially ones that would go around calling him Kuchiki-sama in front of Ichigo.

"I found some candy bars, and there was a small bit of a chocolate cake left from this week's dinner party," he said, placing the tray on the small table beside the futon and pulling off the cover.

Ichigo looked it over, and a hint of a smile twitched at the corner as he reached out and touched the items on the tray. It wasn't a lot, and it certainly wasn't a meal, but he grabbed one piece of the candy and began to eat it, sucking the bar rather than biting into it. He obviously enjoyed it quite a bit.

Byakuya glanced over at Rukia who was sitting on the other futon. Renji had only come along briefly, and had already returned to the division. She smiled softly as he ate the proffered chocolate and then the small piece of cake. He didn't want to overload him, especially with sweet western foods. Eventually he was licking the remaining chocolate from his fingers thoughtfully.

He knew this wasn't the same Master. But what if he was fooling him? That annoying internal voice told him he was being stupid and he shoved it away. He couldn't help it. Master was everything, his entire world. He lived only to serve him. He shook his head. No. No he didn't. He never did. It was so confusing and he was having such a hard time dragging himself up from his own mind.

Dammit. He couldn't concentrate. He rolled the pen in his mouth, leaving teeth marks as he stared at the papers on his desk dumbly.

"Ishida-kun?" Orhime's voice said near his ear, breaking him from his reverie. He looked up to find the girl leaning over his desk, innocent face wide and massive breasts nearly two inches form his nose.

"Yes, Inoue-san?" he said glancing up at her.

"Lunch time, will you come with us? I brought sweet bean paste and pineapple jam with bread today!" she said proudly. Ishida shook his head, certain that that was probably not something he wanted to share.

He stood, gathering his things and making sure his bento was in his bag and followed Inoue, Tatsuki, Chiruzu, Chad, Mizuru and Keigo to the roof. He was brought out of his thoughts when Keigo started talking.

"So there's a rumor that Ichigo maybe didn't run away," he said, staring at his food.

Those present who knew felt a shiver at the mention of their obviously missing friend. "Oh, who said that?" Chiruzu asked, thoughtfully.

"Ah, was just talking to a first year, I guess there was a report on him on some show the other night, still flashing his picture and looking for information. They said after six months…they quit bothering to look," he said sadly, staring again at his hands. "I just don't think Ichigo would just run away no matter what his dad says."

Ishida arched a brow. It had only been a couple days since the return to soul society and finding their friend in a desperate way. There was no way he could come back to the world of the living like that. "You said they didn't think he was a runaway, though. Why's that?"

Keigo nodded. "Well, on this show, they just pointed out some things the interviewers had found out around the school. They called me but I didn't think anything of it. But I guess they'd managed to somehow get the school records and all his absences for long periods, and the injuries he sometimes showed up with, and they had this idea that he had been killed in gang violence."

Ishida locked eyes with Inoue. If only they knew… You could certainly call the shinigami versus Aizen a gang thing in human terms. "I don't think so," Tatsuki said softly. And the wondered if she would reveal to the others the limited information. That Ichigo was alive, but too hurt to return home yet. "I think he's alive."

Keigo looked at her. "What's changed your mind? You've been swearing he was dead for the last three months since you couldn't sense his presence or something weird like that."

She smiled, not looking up. "I sense him out there, somewhere. He'll come home when he can."

With that, the almost weekly discussion of the missing friend ended. Six months was a long time, but Ishida's chest clenched to think about the fact he'd been there two years, not six months. And when he did come back to the world of the living, those two years would show on his body. He was older, taller by a bit, and it was obvious that it was more than six months. But humans were always ones to ignore things that didn't make sense. Like a sixteen year old disappearing and coming back looking like an eighteen year old with scars that even Inoue couldn't heal.

The rest of the day dragged on and at the end he felt himself at Urahara's shop again. He stared for a long time before the shopkeeper opened the door to stare at him.

"Ishida-kun, are you going to stay out there all evening?" he asked, his eyes shaded beneath the ever present hat.

"Urahara-san, I thought you'd still be in soul society?" he asked, confused by the other's presence.

He nodded, clucking thoughtfully. "Yes, well, I'm headed back. Would you like to accompany me?"

Ishida thought about it for a moment. Did he really want to do that? He hated the shinigami. They were his mortal enemies after all. But he also felt like he should be there to help Ichigo along the long path he had. "I suppose, do you think Ichigo would like to see me?"

Urahara nodded. "Of course! He may not be able to voice it yet, but now that those cuffs are gone, he is slowly regaining some of his self back. And the more who help him the better."

Before he knew it, he was recruited to the daunting task of gathering strange equipment that was heavy. He sighed, helping as much as he could.

Ishida wasn't sure about the whole thing as he approached the manor. He waited at the gates as he was announced, and then let in. It was full dark now, and he was sure Kurosaki would be asleep. But he went ahead, and looked up as Rukia came to meet him. They had idle chat as they wove their way to the outdoor area in front of Ichigo's room. They sat on the wooden deck and looked out at the stars.

"Any progress?" he asked.

She sighed. "Nii-sama gave him some chocolate earlier, and he seemed to feel a little better. But when we asked what he wanted, he was shocked he could ask for food. And then he said something about having it taken away. I get the impression that Aizen would offer him something and then take it away just to cause him pain."

There was a soft moan in the room behind them. The screen was open, so they could see he was thrashing in his sleep. Rukia and Ishida stood up and went in. The last they wanted was him trying to flay the skin off his arms in his sleep again. She kneeled beside him as his breathing hitched and he muttered under his breath. She wanted to touch him, but she wasn't sure if that would help or not.

Then his eyes flashed open and he stared at her and started to hyperventilate immediately. "No! Leave me alone…" he gasped in between panting breaths and covered his eyes, pushing backward into the wall behind him. Rukia stepped back, a twinge at her heart.

Ishida saw him starting to tear at his hair, frowning when he came away with a hand full of orange strands. He reached out and grabbed both his wrists, pulling his hands from his head. He fixed him with an intense stare, but didn't flinch away.

"I-Ishida?" he asked, looking around him, seemingly lost. "Ishida," he said again more sure of himself this time. "Ishida. Ishida…" he kept repeating.

Rukia looked at the Quincy and nodded at him. He carefully sat down, not letting go of his wrists where he lightly gripped them. Ichigo was still nodding and repeating his name at random times, looking around the room, pointedly avoiding Rukia at all costs. Finally, his eyes came up and met Ishida's. He looked at where his hands were gripping his wrists and he turned his hands around in the grip and brushed his hands over Ishida's carefully, as though the hands were going to break. He looked up and nodded.

"Stay?" he asked quietly. "Ishida…safe."

To say that you could have knocked the Quincy over with a feather was an understatement. He nodded slowly to his friend and saw him relax his back; his hands still lay on top of the Quincy's own. He nodded again, more sure then dropped back to the bed, but as soon as Ishida started to stand, he felt a frantic hand on his leg and saw the wide eyed stare in Ichigo's eyes. He bit down on his lip and nodded, sitting back down, his hand not moving this time from his leg. And then, moments passed, and he had settled into a quiet sleep.

Rukia looked at him. "I'll find you a pillow or two, that's the calmest I've seen him."

"But why?" he asked, looking down at the face that he had thought he knew and at one time hated just for being a shinigami.

She smiled. "Uryu, you weren't there. Aizen didn't use you to torture him. You, Urahara, Chad, Orhime…he feels like you're safe, where he's still trying to separate in his head that the illusion of us and the real us here in soul society are different things. I'm sure he would have reacted the same way with the others. He just needs to feel human contact again, Unohana said. Contact not equated with pain."

"I thought that once the cuffs were removed, he'd, you know, be normal again, he's still talks like a child…" he said, thoughtfully, now dropping a hand onto his head.

A presence at the doorway made them look up. It was Byakuya watching. "Unohana-taichou told me that his mind is mended, but he is used to acting a certain way. Breaking those habits will take time. He's finally stopped calling himself pet, and using I to refer to himself. It isn't much, but she says it is a marked improvement. His entire consciousness was nearly crushed, so it has to take time."

Ishida nodded, taking the offered pillows and stuffing them behind his back and sighing into them. It wasn't that uncomfortable, and for some reason, he was happy that he could be the one to offer him some security while he tried to return his mind to a stable condition. He ran his fingers through the orange hair. It was still somewhat dingy, as they hadn't gotten him into a real bath yet, just sponged him off while he was out. He figured that would be the first step in the morning. Sleep eventually found him, and his mind drifted away.

He awoke to the smell of food. He blinked slowly and saw that Byakuya's servants had brought him and Ichigo a couple covered dishes and it smelled good. His stomach agreed. He moved to get up but felt hands clench around his waist. He looked down to realize that during the night, Ichigo had moved and wrapped both arms around his waist and buried his head in his lap. And it appeared that letting go of him wasn't going to be an option while he was asleep. He frowned, not sure if he liked becoming a security blanket or not. He heard a throat clear and looked up to see Renji staring at the compromising position and flushed immediately red.

"Um, yeah, he…"

Renji smiled. "At least he's letting someone get close enough to hold him. He needs it," he said, not an ounce of mockery in his voice.

Ishida smiled. "Does it count if he's asleep?"

"I think so," Renji said with a nod.

Ishida looked up. "He needs a bath, badly, his hair looks like its brown. Is there one nearby?" he asked as Renji pushed the small table with the tray close enough to reach without getting up.

Renji nodded. "Yeah, just out the door and around to the right, there's a bath. There's clothes and towels over there on the dresser I laid out for you. I…I was going to ask you to do it, I doubted he would let me take him."

Ishida nodded. "Yeah, me too," he said as he ate the offered eggs and ham quickly. Not really a traditional breakfast, but he guess that Byakuya's chefs were experimenting.

As he finished, he found Ichigo watching him quietly from his place in his lap without moving. He looked down, finding it odd that his head in his lap didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. He smiled gently. "There's breakfast, then you're bathing," he said.

Ichigo looked confused. "Bath? Pet…I can bathe?"

Ishida frowned. "Of course, you look like you haven't had a bath in a long time. Didn't they let you bathe?"

He shook his head. "Had a bucket of water sometimes…"

"Okay, here, sit up and eat something," he said nodding at him.

He slowly unwrapped his arms and sat up, staring at the plate in front of him. He looked at it blankly until he picked up his hand and put the chopsticks into his hand, remembering he was right handed. He stared at them for a long moment, as though trying to remember how to use them. Ishida groaned inwardly. Of course, he probably couldn't even remember how to do such a simple thing after what had happened to his head.

"Here," Ishida said, helping him as one helped a child learn to use the utensils. After a moment, he was clumsily using them, steadily improving. Most likely he was slowly recalling how to use them, his body retraining something he hadn't done in so long. At first he was timid, and kept glancing up at Ishida as if to make sure it wasn't going to be taken. When he was done he stared at the empty plate curiously, and then ran his fingers around the outside.

"Okay, ready to get cleaned up properly?" he asked, smiling at him and standing.

He sat still for a while and looked up. Ishida reached out, and felt him grab his hand in a painfully hard grasp. He winced but let him. He slowly led him to the door, grabbing the towels and a clean yukata as they went. He hoped this went well. Being comfortable went a long way to feeling better.


	7. Chapter 7 - Water

**Chapter Seven**

Water

* * *

"So basically, he has to redo tasks to recreate the paths in his head to be able to do them?" Renji said, looking at Urahara, who was humming over his read outs.

Urahara nodded. "Basically, the only thing that was safe was the part that the hollow protected, the core of his soul. And even that was damaged." The eccentric scientist looked thoughtful. "Okay, think of it this way, the hollow somehow managed to create a pure reiatsu barrier that over the year was all he was pouring energy into. It was a shield of sorts, keeping the core of his soul away from the raging lightning that was striking out looking for that small core of his soul. Mayuri-san was impressed by this, so that's saying something. Whoever made this is a genius, a sadistic horrible genius, but a genius nonetheless."

Renji rubbed his head. "So…that's why he can't figure out how to do things that he should know, and why he can't talk like normal?"

"Well, it is a combination of two things. First, we basically had to rebuild a huge portion of his mind, including his memories. Second, he'd been basically programed to respond to commands during the time that his mind was shattered. He was essentially no more than a trained pet for that time. That was, after all, what they sought to accomplish. Sending him back in that state was something they knew would have a deep impact on moral and take our attention as we tried to fix it. However, it wasn't meant to be fixed," Urahara said softly.

By now, Rukia had wandered to the large table in the fourth division where Urahara was methodically going over readings. "What do you mean, it wasn't meant to be fixed?"

Urahara sighed. "He was meant to stay that way. What he did was permanent, at least it should have been. Even after restoring his mind to full capacity, the overriding instincts and programming would have kicked in. He would gain new memories, but everything that was lost would remain so. As I'm sure you noticed the scars on his forearms weren't affected by Inoue's magic like usual. Inoue can do much, but she cannot restore a soul that's been ripped apart or obliterated. And that device was meant to slowly obliterate his soul, leaving him merely a husk of what he had been."

Rukia shook her head. "That's terrible. I mean, that's above and beyond just trying to get the king's key like we've suspected. If he wanted to destroy him like that, what happened?"

There was a deep sigh as Urahara laid out two scans. One was a reading of Ichigo's reiatsu before and the other after the cuffs had finally been extracted. "He wasn't expecting us to extract the cuffs, for one, and for another he wasn't expecting Ichigo's hollow to protect him like that. Since both things happened, that core of soul has been released, and now it is trying to reassert itself in him. But, he was under the illusion before the cuffs were used, so even in his soul core, he is still fighting that illusion. His training is trying to take over when he's in stressed situations and when hit with the wrong stimulus he'll panic."

"So what do we do?" Rukia asked softly. "I mean, he can't go home like this, they'll put him away in one of those hospitals and he'll never leave again."

Urahara nodded. "You are correct, so we have to get him to come back to himself here. And I have to warn you…I can't say if he'll ever be exactly the same. There was damage to the soul core towards the end. How much is hard to tell at this point. At this point, it is up to him. But…I'll caution you both. To return to his whole self will bring all of it back, all the memories of those two years that he may only vaguely remember at this point. His hollow released them in full, but he's reacting and trying to push them away."

Renji nodded. "Oh, I found him wrapped around Ishida this morning!" he said as if remembering suddenly.

Rukia arched a brow and Urahara smiled broadly. "Was he? What happened?"

"Well, Rukia said last night he wouldn't let Ishida leave, and he slept easier. So I went to see about getting him a proper bath this morning and he had his arms around Ishida's waist and his head in his lap. Poor Ishida looked like a trapped rat when he realized he couldn't get up and that I'd walked in on him," he said with a grin.

Urahara let out a slow sigh. "That's an incredible improvement in a short time. It isn't Byakuya-san but it's a place to start. At least he's reaching out to someone. Will Ishida stay with him?"

Rukia shrugged. "I…he has school, unless he wanted to get excused from it."

Renji grinned wolfishly until Rukia frowned at him. "I left him this morning taking Ichigo to the bath…I wonder how that went…"

Rukia sighed. "Only you, pervert. Anyway, we should let Ishida know about this retraining thing so he understands why he's having to show him how to do simple things again."

"Please, do, Rukia-san. Make sure he understands that he is going to go slowly at first, but he will regain the skills very quickly. So unlike a child who has to be shown many times, he may only need to be shown once and allowed to practice to pick up skills. It will all be things that he wasn't allowed to do while he was trained. So I imagine a bath was an experience…" Urahara said thoughtfully.

Urahara had no idea how right he was. About the bath, of course. Ishida led Ichigo down into the room and he just stood there looking around quietly. He turned on the water to fill the tub and turned back to see him staring at his reflection in the large mirror. He reached out and touched the reflection a frown marring his face as he looked over himself in the light colored yukata.

Ishida cleared his throat, but got no response, so he moved closer and tapped his shoulder, seeing him jump a bit and then turn to him. "What's the matter?"

"That's me," he said absently, still holding a finger to the reflection. "It's not me."

Ishida frowned. "What do you mean?"

"This…this is not…but…it is…" he stammered over the words, obviously confused about what he was trying to get across.

"Well, it is you _now._ But once you're better and back to normal it will really be you again," he said pulling him away from the reflection.

He stared at him thoughtfully, as though the words were taking a while to process. And of course, the truth was, that was exactly what was happening. Thoughts were like mud to him right now. They tended to flow sluggishly or trickle where they used to gush in floods in his quick mind. He knew this was wrong. He knew it at his very core, but it was like he was stuck in glue entirely. His tongue would stick and the words would choke and he couldn't even complete a coherent thought. And now he was trying to figure out how to get across to Ishida what he meant. And it was _important._ But again, his tongue stuck and stuttered until the words died before they'd even begun.

Ishida frowned as he watched the struggle play out on Ichigo's face and then he watched as he let out a resigned sigh. It was almost worse to see than watching him struggle with figuring out chopsticks again. Then he thought, what else did he have to relearn? He glanced at the bath. If he hadn't actually been allowed to have a real bath in two years… He would have no idea how to go about it at all by now. Well, Ishida thought, stripping his shirt off and figuring there was nothing to it. Wasn't like Ichigo had anything he didn't have.

"Ichigo, we're going to put you in the water now, is that okay?" he said, leading the still dressed boy to the side of the bath. He stared at it, frowning deeply, and Ishida almost smiled because he _almost_ looked like he was about to knit his brow together in that familiar scowl.

A shiver took him and he shook his head. "Ah…no."

Ishida frowned. "You need to wash out your hair, and a good warm soak will help your muscles feel better."

Ichigo crossed his arms, clutching his shoulders protectively. "It hurts…" he muttered, staring at the water.

"Ichigo, you don't have any wounds, so there's nothing that will sting, remember, they healed them all up?" he said, thinking perhaps that the problem was that when he'd had water used it was to clean wounds.

He shook his head. "No, hurts here," he said slowly, patting his chest.

At first he couldn't figure out what he meant then his eyes widened slightly. "Ichigo, did they try and hold your head under water?"

Ichigo nodded. "Coughing it hurts."

Ishida sighed. Great. Another hurdle he had to get past with him. He looked around, trying to figure out how in the world he was going to get someone who had acquired a fear of water into a bath of water.

"Oi, Ichigo, if I get in with you, will you sit with me?" he asked, thinking leading by example would help. "I'll get in and sit down and you get in afterward. You'll be fine."

Ichigo looked at him and thought for a long while. Ishida was sure the slow thinking process was going to kill him. Then he realized it must be torture for him, having always been quick with wit, retorts, and insults. "Hot?" he asked, frowning again, staring at the tub of water.

Ishida shook his head, then sighed. He undid his pants and stayed in his boxers and stepped into the water. "See? It isn't hot, it is nice and warm."

Ichigo stepped forward nodding and slowly stepped into the water, very slowly. Ishida smiled. Victory! Then he realized he was still in the Yukata. Well, that wouldn't do.

"Ichigo, we have to take this off so you can get all the way clean, okay?" he said, untying it as Ichigo watched numbly.

He turned him around and pulled it off his shoulders then pressed down so he could sit. At first he started a little and then relaxed as Ishida kneeled beside him. He almost looked surprised that he was safe and he nodded, his hands playing under the surface of the water slowly.

"You remember how to do this?" he asked, holding up a soapy sponge. Ichigo tilted his head to the side and blinked that slow blink that Ishida was beginning to understand meant he was trying very hard to make the connection between the object and what he was supposed to use it for. He'd seen it when he retaught him the chopsticks. A long slow blink as he tried to gather the thoughts.

"Didn't think so," Ishida said with a sigh and placed it in his hand, and proceeded to direct his hands to washing himself with it. It only took a few times and he seemed to pick up on it return and soon enough he'd cleaned all of himself except his hair.

As soon as Ishida reached for his head though, he flinched, splashing water out onto the floor. Well, what did he expect? Of course, he wasn't going to want someone to hold his head in the water if they'd used water to torture him and force him to breathe in water. He figured he'd lead by example this time. He picked up the pouring cup and doused his own black hair. Ichigo watched, again, long slow blink, making those connections. Ishida handed him a full pouring cup to him to indicate for him to do it. He was about to and Ishida stopped him.

"Close your eyes and your mouth and don't breathe until the water's gone, okay?" he reminded him. Last thing he needed was him to accidently drown himself.

He poured the water over his head slowly and sputtered a little, but despite panting a bit, looked okay. Ishida poured a dab of shampoo in his hand and worked it into his own hair and then held it out to Ichigo to see if he'd let him do the same for him. He didn't quite trust in Ichigo's ability to thoroughly clean the mess on his head. He slowly nodded and Ishida moved behind him and began the process. He was quite disgusted by the mats and nests in his hair, and underneath, quite a few places flaked with dried blood and he didn't even want to know what else. He frowned and reached over to his pants and pulled out his spare sewing kit, taking out a small set of scissors.

"Ichigo, I'm going to have to cut some of these spots out, and I'll trim it up so it doesn't look bad, okay? It's way too long for you right now anyway," he said, proceeding to snip quickly, until to his pleasure the hair, though still a little long, looked much closer than in once had to the way he normally wore it. He smiled at his work, the hair damp but already attempting to stick straight up in the untamed way he was used to seeing. He'd managed to remove all the nests and matted spots, and in the middle of all that, Ichigo had leaned back against him. To his surprise, he looked down as his head flopped backward, and he realized, he'd fallen asleep.

"Jeeze, Ishida, now you take baths with him? People are gonna talk," Renji's voice came from the doorway, making him nearly jump, almost dropping the scissors in the water.

"Dammit, Renji, don't do that," he muttered. "Here, can you help me, I have to rinse his hair, he fell asleep while I was clipping out the mats and stuff."

Renji faltered. "Is that a good idea, what if he wakes up?"

Ishida rolled his eyes. "Look the water is turning cold, and if I don't get him out, he's going to freeze and so am I."

Renji nodded. "What should I do?" he asked as he kneeled beside the tub.

"Here, just hold up his shoulders up out of the water while I rinse this soap off him. Don't jostle him; I nearly didn't get him in the damn bath. Apparently they had tried to drown him a time or two. Said water hurt his chest, and then he asked if it was hot, so that's why I had to get in. I wonder if there was anything they didn't torture him with. Food, water, baths… How sick and twisted can you get? So now I'm soaked to the bone to get him here. Otherwise he wasn't coming near it," he said as Renji held him up, Ishida holding up his head as he ran water over the now bright orange hair. That did look a lot more like the Ichigo he remembered.

Unfortunately, even though he would have liked the simple thing to have gone like that, Ichigo chose that moment to open his eyes and saw Renji leaning over him. Renji's eyes widened as Ichigo's blinked and twitched wildly and he started to fight against him. It was doubtless the face who had used water against him as Ishida cursed under his breath, dropping the container and wrapping both arms around his back, as Renji jerked backward away from him. "Dammit," Renji muttered under his breath, his kusodo soaked and half his hakama as water violently sloshed out of the bath at him.

"Ichigo, stop, I'm here, remember?" he said, and the thrashing stopped, though he could feel the hammering of his heart under his arms. "Remember, Renji is your friend? Aizen hurt you, and used Renji's face. But it wasn't him, remember?"

Ichigo's breathing leveled off and his heart began to slow as he stared at the now half naked Renji. This wasn't the smirking Renji. This was the warm Renji, which was fierce but loyal, that he'd fought with but who lost and wanted Ichigo to still save Rukia for him. He frowned again, a long slow blink, and reached outward toward Renji's face. Renji moved forward, eyes flitting between Ichigo's hand and Ishida who gave a slight nod. He gently brushed fingertips over his cheek and jumped when a smile spread across his face but…it was a real smile…so he touched his fingertips against his cheek again.

He closed his eyes. "Renji…not Renji-sama," he whispered as if trying to convince himself. "Renji is a friend, not Renji-sama…Renji-sama hurt me, not Renji."

Renji nodded enthusiastically. "That's right, Ichigo. That's right. It was an illusion, Aizen made it."

"Tired," Ichigo said with a sigh, nearly falling into Ishida again.

"Okay, hey, let's get you out and dry and in fresh clothes, first okay?" Ishida said, pulling him to his feet and wrapping a towel about his waist and one around his shoulders. Renji snickered and pointed to Ishida's soaked boxers. He got a glare in return.

Between the two of them, they dried and dressed the half asleep orange haired shinigami. Renji was just happy he wasn't flinching away and screaming every time he came near. But he knew that it might happen again. Two years locked into that hellish illusion had taken its toll on him. Renji thought it would have killed someone else besides him. He wondered if he could have lived through the hell he'd gone through, and as strong as he considered himself, he seriously had his doubts.


	8. Chapter 8 - Chance Meetings

_A/N: Look at you guys getting another chapter today. Aren't you spoiled? _

_And if there are any requests for something you'd like to see with the completely weakened and WAY OOC Ichigo, feel free to let me know. I'll see if I can't work them in. :)_

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

Chance Meetings

* * *

Once more, Ishida found himself with a head in his lap when he awoke the next morning. The rest of the day had gone relatively well, and he was pleased that at lunch Ichigo had retained the information on how to eat properly. Renji had explained what Urahara said, and it made sense. He saw when he was processing things to try and reassert those connections. Doing them, however, made the connections solidify. That also meant that to get his speech to return to some semblance of normal, he had to talk. And as much as Ishida wanted that to happen, he really was not keen to find out what he was going to say.

"Ichigo?" he asked as he got him settled for breakfast. "Would you like to walk around outside today? Just around the seiretai? Might jog some of those things in your head loose."

He looked outside and then Ishida swore there was the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. "Yeah, outside is nice," he said quietly. "Walking is nice."

Ishida nodded, well of course, he'd been chained up for two goddamned years, of course he would like to go walking around outside, something he hadn't been able to do. It was lucky that the healing between Inoue and Unohana had made sure his muscles weren't atrophied and unstable. Otherwise, walking would have been difficult without some intense physical therapy. As it was, he was certain he would tire easy. Ishida watched as he ate no longer glancing at him to ensure he was going to be allowed to do so. It was subtle, but it was there, and he was happy that Ichigo seemed to trust him more.

Urahara had come by after Ichigo had fallen asleep the night before to make the request he stay in soul society to help Ichigo recover. Ishida was resistant at first, but then realized if he was making slow, steady progress, then leaving him might be detrimental. Even after just one day. So now, Ishida was on an overseas trip that was taking an indeterminate about of time, and his work was being forwarded to Urahara's shop via his father. It wasn't like his teachers really cared, since he was by far one of the most intelligent students in the school. And though he often didn't show it, so was Ichigo.

The impact of his disappearance had been felt throughout the school. At first it wasn't anything to be worried about, after all, he had several longer absences. But as the first couple months passed and no one heard anything, those that knew what had happened saw the steady ripples of unease filter through the students. Chad, Ishida, and Orhime kept the information secret, and eventually Ichigo's father had listed him as a runaway due to the school's incessant hounding as to his whereabouts. As a runaway, he wouldn't be sought by the police, and considering his physical body was still in Urahara's shoten soulless, that was essential. Minor memory changes were easy, here and there, but an entire town? That would be a little bit of a hassle.

It impacted people more than the three knowing teens would have thought. His absence was something that was noticed, and after the runaway thing started, no one seemed to be able to stop talking about it. For the three remaining friends, there was more than a small shade of guilt. All of them felt the crushing reiatsu flood the area, but by the time they had reacted, it was too late. Ishida had managed to get to the area in time to see Ichigo being pulled through the garganta and Toshiro trying to reach him in time. The shock of the situation had taken some getting used to. After Inoue had been kidnapped then shortly rescued from Heuco Mundo by the small strike group, they thought that dealings there would be done. Instead, a week after returning, Ichigo was taken in a flashy show of strength by Aizen. They came to the conclusion that Inoue's kidnapping had been a ruse to draw them in and analyze their power, and then return in force for their target.

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts as he helped Ichigo changed into fresh clothes. It was just easier to put him the simple yukata. Maneuvering his nearly unresponsive body into anything else was not a prospect. He would be glad when he felt comfortable enough to move under his own control without instruction, but he supposed that it was a lot to ask a couple days after the bloody cuffs that had nearly killed him were off.

Ishida carefully took his arm by the wrist and led him outside, and through the gates, trying to avoid as many of the Kuchiki people as he could. When to the gate he informed them that they would be returning later that day after a walk. The guard looked confused but nodded. It was a quiet day and Ishida had brought him out between breakfast and lunch, thinking that less people would be around. He was right, and watched as Ichigo slowly began to look around as he walked instead of staring at his feet. He didn't say anything, and eventually smiled to himself as he let his hand go and it wasn't grabbed back.

He stretched again, feeling the kinks from sleeping sitting up two nights in a row. He sure hoped he would let him lie in the other futon tonight; either that or he'd just have to lie down beside him. He wasn't sure that he could take sleeping like that much more.

"Oi, Quincy, Kurosaki!" came a call, and as usual, Ichigo had no response but continued walking. Ishida turned to see Ikkaku and Yumichika jogging up to them. He thought about waving them off, but instead held up a hand for them to stop.

He reached out and stopped Ichigo, who turned and stared at him blankly for a minute. "Ichigo, some friends came to see you, can we turn around?" he asked softly.

The frown returned but he nodded a bit. Ikkaku and Yumichika exchanged glances as they approached, and Ichigo turned to face them. He flinched violently away from them, though, eyes wide at them.

Ishida stood his ground, grabbing him by the shoulders to still him. "No, stop, Ichigo. Remember? Think."

Ikkaku and Yumichika had come up within an arm's length by now, frowning. The last they had heard was that he was still injured and something about reiatsu sealing cuffs that messed with his head somehow. They had no idea how seriously, though.

Ichigo was shaking slightly as he looked them over one at a time. "Ikkaku…" he said and frowned, holding up his hands and rubbing them almost violently. It was obvious he was in a memory of Ikkaku's double.

"Ichigo, it wasn't Ikkaku, remember, the illusion?" he said softly. "Ikkaku would never hurt you like that. You fought each other and sparred, and you're friends," Ishida continued pulling his hands away from each other.

"Pierced hands," he said softly, holding up his hands as though he expected there to be gaping holes in them. And in his mind, all Ichigo saw was that spear-like zanpakuto slicing through both of his hands into the ground below them. But the face had been wrong. Something wrong with the face. "Was Ikkaku, wasn't Ikkaku…"

"Ishida, what the hell is wrong with him?" Ikkaku asked, finally.

Ishida let Ichigo struggle with his memories but kept his hands firmly on the back of his shoulders to keep him from bolting.

"How much did you hear about what happened?" he asked them.

Ikkaku shook his head. "Something about him being held for a long time, and tortured and having his reiatsu sealed. Just something really bad and that he was pretty messed up. Enough to put everyone on edge, but we don't know exact details."

"Well, it was more than that. The cuffs that sealed his power nearly deteriorated his entire mind and soul. They were meant to destroy him completely and leave him a shell. But the worst is that each of you were used in Aizen's perfect hypnosis. So for two years, his tormenters were everyone from soul society. And obviously, Ikkaku was used at some point," Ishida said as Ichigo's gaze had returned to Ikkaku. "So right now, he's trying to break through that illusion, but it is taking a lot of time. Which is why I'm here, I was never used against him."

Yumichika and Ikkaku weren't sure what to say. "What? Seriously?" Ikkaku finally said. "What the hell does he think I did to him?"

Ishida sighed, looking a bit uncomfortable. "Not sure, but considering he's staring at his hands where there were some pretty nasty sword sized wounds, my guess is his hands were pinned by your zanpakuto in his illusion."

"The hell? Why would someone do that?" he asked. He reached out to grasp Ichigo's shoulder to bring his eyes up from his hands, but as soon as the hand touched his shoulder he yelped and jerked away, nearly knocking Ishida over. If he hadn't been prepared, he would have tumbled onto his ass.

"Ichigo!" he asserted, holding him steady. "Stop, remember?"

"N-not him…stop…wouldn't do this…stop…" he was muttering, shaking his head, going for his hair again snatching hands into the significantly shorter locks as he muttered again. Ishida moved in front of him and grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands away from his hair.

"Dammit, Ichigo, you're going to snatch yourself bald if you do this every damn time we see someone new!" he growled.

Ichigo fixed him with a stare and a nod, his breath starting to slow a bit. "There, okay, see, what did I tell you?"

"Not Ikkaku…was Ikkaku-sama…" he breathed finally. "Not Yumichika, was Yumichika-sama…"

"That's right, that's it, are you relaxed, can I let you go?" Ishida asked sighing. Ichigo's short nod gave him rise to let go and return to his position behind him, just in case.

"Just what the hell does he think we did to him?" Ikkaku asked incredulous.

Ishida bit the corner of his lip and shook his head. "Ikkaku, imagine the worst ways you can think to break someone's will, and you have your answer. Whatever it is, or how bad you want to believe a person wouldn't do to another, that's what happened. And all the time with the faces of people he knew and loved."

Ichigo's attention had faltered though, and he was looking around randomly. About then, though, there was a flash step and a mountainous Kenpachi showed up with a pink haired creature on his back.

"Ichi! Ichi is back!" Yachiru cheered. "You play with Keni-chan again, Ichi?"

Ichigo took a minute to register the new faces and stumbled past Ishida to trip and fall flat and stare up at the eleventh division captain with a fully horrified expression. Before he could stop him, Ichigo was back to his feet and running, leaving a confused Kenpachi and stunned Yachiru with Ikkaku and Yumichika who were telling their captain to wait.

"Ichigo, stop, dammit!" Ishida yelled, extremely glad he didn't seem to remember how to flash step. He didn't have trouble keeping up with his own version of the fast movement. He caught him easily, but it took him a moment to get the flailing shinigami under control, pinning his arms down and holding him against him.

"Ichigo, I need you to think again, can you please?" he practically whispered in his ear, feeling the four slowly walking up behind him. He was next to a wall and was facing Ichigo studiously into it until he felt the muscles relax completely. "Okay, stay like this, stay here and look at the wall, okay?" A small nod and he let go, finding to his relief Ichigo stayed in that position, eyes flitting back and forth over the wall.

He turned to see the eleventh captain scowling. "What the hell happened to Kurosaki? I know what they said at the captain's meeting, but he's all sorts of fucked up."

Ishida nodded. "It is going to take a while. His mind is still messed up, he doesn't really know what is real and what was Aizen's illusion. At least you guys weren't the stars of Aizen's illusion."

Yumichika frowned and looked at the others. "What does that mean, stars of his illusion?"

"It means that Kuchiki-taichou, Renji and Rukia were used against him on a daily basis. Others in soul society were used throughout, but from day one those three were his tormentors. So far as I've found, besides the physical torture and the…um…other…they used water, food, and about anything else to torture him," Ishida answered, looking at the stock still shinigami behind him.

"The other?" Ikkaku echoed.

Ishida shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, you know, besides beating him, slicing his skin, burning him and all that."

It seemed to finally dawn on Yumichika, while the others seemed confused. "He did _that_? With our faces? To him?"

"Many times, now I'm going to keep going with him, it seems he's nowhere near ready for Zaraki-taichou yet," Ishida said, pulling Ichigo and he walked obediently beside him, staring at his feet as he did.

He vaguely heard the sharp intakes of breath behind them as they walked away. He really hoped he didn't have to explain this to every person he came across today. But this was necessary. If Ichigo didn't reconnect with people in his life, he'd never get past the illusions blocking his brain. And that wouldn't do it the slightest.

As he walked, Ichigo felt a sense of freedom he hadn't in a long time. The idea that he could actually run from something he feared instead of cowering into a corner was freeing. He knew that the Kenpachi he saw wasn't the same one who had tortured him, his immediate instinct was to flee him. And to be able to actually flee…it reinforced the condition that he wasn't under someone else's control anymore. As strange as it seemed, running away seemed to have made several things click in his brain. He stopped and looked up.

"Can we eat?" he asked softly, shocking Ishida. He'd not asked for anything before.

Ishida nodded. "Yeah, come on, there's a noodle place nearby."

They got several curious looks, mostly shinigami who knew of Ichigo but didn't know him personally. A couple tried to say something only to be completely ignored by the orange haired shinigami concentrating entirely on his bowl of soba. Ishida had hastily waved them away with a smile, hoping that no one would disturb them too much. Until he looked up to see Toshiro and Matsumoto come into the place.

"I told you I didn't want to eat lunch here, I just had breakfast!" Toshiro said, trying to sound assertive and not like a whining kid.

"Oh, taichou, come on, this is the only place that serves sake this early!" she complained, quite loudly whining.

"Why do you need…sake…" Toshiro started but then locked eyes with Ishida who sat silently beside Ichigo who was leaned over his food.

Matsumoto looked back to see her captain had not followed her and frowned, starting to say something when she realized where his gaze had gone. She returned to his side and Ishida sighed, glancing at the obvious male at his side. Toshiro and Matsumoto hadn't seen him since the kidnapping six months previously, and the small captain carried more than a little guilt at not being able to save him from the fate he had then endured.

He sat down at the table slowly in front of him and Matsumoto sat beside him and they wondered if he'd look up to see them. Ishida sighed and shook his head.

"He won't acknowledge you yet, not until I direct him to," he said sadly.

"Why not?" asked Toshiro. They both knew the basics, like everyone else, but only the Kuchikis and Renji had been through everything with them. They had attended to watch as Urahara removed the cuffs, a heart stopping affair that had been.

Ishida nodded, reaching up and shaking him slightly. Ichigo turned his head and stared at Ishida for a moment. "Ichigo, look, some of your other friends? Friends, remember, okay? I don't want to have to chase you halfway across the seireitai again today, okay?"

Ichigo turned and looked over both of them, at first his eyes blank and breath even. Then, his eyes blinked exceedingly slowly and he stiffened, but Ishida kept his hands on his shoulder tightly. His breath hitched and he started to nearly hyperventilate, eyes wide with something akin to shock.

"No, Ichigo, think, okay?" Not them," Ishida said quietly but strong.

Slowly his breath slowed and he closed his eyes for a long moment. "Toshiro…not Toshiro-sama. Toshiro."

"What is going on? What's wrong with him?" Matsumoto asked, surprised. "I mean I know he was in bad shape…"

Ishida shook his head. "He's trying to reawaken the soul core that wasn't destroyed by those cuffs they put on him. So his head isn't right yet. He's shaking away the illusion that Aizen put there. He was tortured using soul society, and he's started separating the figures in his head by calling those images that hurt him with sama, like he was force to do with Aizen. Now if we could get him to stop calling Byakuya Master we'd be doing great…at least he quit calling himself pet…"

"Pet?" he quirked up beside him, his eyes bright for a moment. "Good pet…" he murmured.

"No, Ichigo, no. Not pet," he said frowning. Dammit.

"Not pet…Ichigo," he said with a final tone. "Not pet. Ichigo now," he said, frowning again almost to the point of the familiar scowl.

"Ishida, how long is this going to take to get him back to…well normal?" Toshiro asked.

He snorted. "Taichou, I wish I knew. Kurotsuki-taichou was amazed at the cruelty of what they did, so you can imagine how truly terrible it was. His soul core took some damage, but the hollow kept it from being destroyed like Aizen wanted. So he's in there. But we aren't sure how much of him is intact. Right now he has to recreate the thought process for the simplest things. It doesn't take long, last night he couldn't figure out how to use chopsticks. I showed him and today he's using them like normal again."

Matsumoto nodded. "But what's the pet thing?"

"Aizen had him trained to be a pet after he used those cuffs to take away most of what made him who he was. So he was trained to respond to commands and that was it. He had no mind of his own, really," Ishida said with a very deep sigh.

Ichigo had finished and now he stared at the empty dish. "I'm taking him back, though, by the time we get back, he's going to want to sleep again," Ishida said standing and pulling him up with him. He bid farewells and they headed back.

Toshiro frowned watching them go. "Can that really be Kurosaki?"

Matsumoto shrugged. "It has to be him in there somewhere…"

"If we'd just got there in time…" he started.

"We wouldn't have been able to stop Aizen and eight espada," she completed. "Now, let's eat!"


	9. Chapter 9 - Closer

A/N: Aren't you a spoiled bunch? Jeeze. :) Enjoy! Almost to the fun stuff where we get some fluffy Ishida/Ichigo, and them some lemony goodness soon enough. Ishida has the healing touch, you know. :)

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

Closer

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Ishida stared at the person he once knew and wondered if he would ever get him back. There was some part of him though that was somewhat pleased by the situation for some reason. He wasn't sure exactly why. It wasn't that he wanted to see Ichigo suffer. It wasn't that he would have wished what happened to him even on Aizen himself. He was lots of things. Prideful, and sometimes damn arrogant. But cruelty was far from his heart. He frowned as he gathered the items for Ichigo again. It had been a week now, and there was steady improvement. Painfully slow, but steady. Almost all the self-care rituals had come back. However, ritual is what they were. He did them the same way, in the same order each day and began to get nervous when things didn't go right. And he would sleep at the drop of a hat, which was in itself odd for the teen. He was used to sleepless nights, spending all day at school and half the night hunting hollows.

However, there was only one way he would sleep at all, and that was with Ishida touching him in some fashion. He might sleep an hour or so after Ishida would leave him, but that was the limit. For an entire night, he had to stay in contact with him. And while at the beginning, it would be something as simple as a hand on his back or his head, by morning he found himself entwined with Ichigo no matter how he tried to keep it from happening. He'd even tried sleeping on the floor and laying his hand up on the futon only to wake up with Ichigo on the floor with him.

The nightly ritual had become pretty specific. They had dinner, then took an hour to sit, usually with Ishida reading and Ichigo looking off in the distance lost in his thoughts. After that, they would bathe, still together since Ichigo would not go near the bath without Ishida there. But now he was pretty much taking care of his own washing, including his hair. But it seemed to all be by rote. There was no thought to it. He would go through the motions and do the things, and to his horror, he realized something watching him.

He was still trained. All he was doing was retraining him. He was still in the exact same mind set, only now instead of answering the desires of Aizen's cruel treatments, he was simply going through the motions of daily living without variation. The same strokes with the sponge, the same motions with his hands to wash his hair, first left side, then right, exactly the same as the night before. There was no thought, nothing. Repeated actions.

Shit.

"Ichigo, come on, lets finish up, we're going to talk to Urahara," he said softly, helping him dry off quicker.

"But we should go to sleep now…" he said, hesitantly, looking toward the door of the bathroom.

Ishida nodded. "We will, but it is very important that I talk to him right now, okay?"

Ichigo seemed like he wanted to argue, but before he could, he was wrapped in a dark blue yukata and the obi tied around him, and Ishida was leading him with haste to the place Urahara was staying within the squad four barracks. He glanced at Ichigo who was slowly starting to panic. The routine was upset, and he was starting to get off kilter. Well, no time to waste. He grabbed him quickly, lifting him and taking off as fast as he could, dropping down at the gates of fourth. He rushed through and beat on Urahara's door.

The familiar green and white hat peeked out.

"Ishida-san? Is there a problem?" he asked, opening the door seeing him and Ichigo standing there.

"Damn right, this," he muttered pushing Ichigo into the room.

He'd started fiddling with the obi sash first, then proceeded to nervously look around the room as if for an escape. He was clearly avoiding both Urahara and Ishida's eyes. Then he started to pick at his hair, hands shaking.

"What happened?" Urahara said, watching as he inched closer and closer to a full panic attack.

"The same thing that happens every time I interrupt his routine. He's freaking out because I brought him here instead of going to his bed after his bath. He's not any different, Urahara. He's still trained, just now he's been trained by me!" Ishida said, walking to Ichigo and sitting him on the low sofa.

Urahara looked skeptical. "I don't understand, you said he had regained much of his knowledge of how to take care of himself, and some things about interaction with others."

"It is the exact same thing every time though. He washes himself the same way, eats the exact same way, moves the same way every time. Every time we see people, the words are the same no matter who they are now, and even though he's stopped flipping out on seeing everyone, he greets them the same way every time! Something isn't right," Ishida said, pulling both Ichigo's hands out of his hair again, grasping both wrists tightly.

"Okay, I see what you mean, bring him to the fourth first thing in the morning, okay?" he said looking over his distressed state. "Will he be okay once you return to his regular routine tonight?"

Ishida nodded. "Once he's back on track he'll be fine."  
"Okay, then first thing after breakfast bring him to Unohana's office. We'll set up a few tests and scans and see if we can figure out why his progress is limited like this," he said, ushering them out the door.

Ishida led him back, and the closer they got to their room, the less anxious he became. Finally, they were laying in the futon once more, and he had fallen asleep as soon as he laid down. Unfortunately for Ishida, he'd buried his head in the hollow of his shoulder, and his right arm was now falling asleep. He brushed his left hand through his orange hair, biting his lip. Why was this so comfortable? Why was he able to lay here beside him with no thought that he was sleeping in the same bed with another man? And was he actually feeling something for him besides pity and guilt?

The last thought hit him hard. What did that mean? He was doing this for a friend. Any friend. Right? But no. Not any friend. He couldn't imagine doing this for Orhime, or Chad, or even Rukia. He would have gladly asked for someone to take over. But here he lay, a week later, and armed with the idea that he trusted him because he wasn't used against him. But neither was Chad or Orhime. And he knew that Orhime would jump at the chance to be in this position. It was pretty obvious that she harbored feelings for Ichigo, from the moment they became friends, he knew. But Ichigo simply threw off any advance with a shrug and a scowl.

"Hey you look comfortable," a voice said from the doorway. He craned his neck to see Renji.

"Yeah, well, my damn arm's asleep again," he muttered, not bothering to pause in his stroking of the orange hair below his hand.

Renji pulled up beside the bed and stared at the sleeping orangette. "He looks peaceful like that, comfortable with you. Has he had any nightmares since you've been staying with him?"

"Only if I get up and leave him," Ishida said sighing. "I swear, if I'm gone more than ten minutes he starts thrashing around in his sleep, and less than an hour he'll wake up. I can't imagine Ichigo agreeing to this sleeping arrangement if he were in his right mind."

Renji snorted and fixed Ishida with a grin. "Oh? Why not?"

Ishida lifted his head a bit. "Well, I mean, he'd probably rather have Rukia or Orhime in his bed, dumb ass."

"Well, he certainly didn't get cozy with either of them when they were here," he said with a smirk. "Orhime tried a couple times, but he actually slapped her once when you weren't around and she tried it."

"What? Really? Urahara said that probably any of us that weren't used could provide comfort for him," he said sighing and flopping his head back.

Renji leaned back. "Don't think so, Uryu, you are a dumb bastard sometimes."

He popped his head up, nearly jarring his sleeping pillow off his arm. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Seriously, Uryu, you are not aware at all, are you?" Renji huffed. "Look at it. Since the first day when he pulled your cross out of your sleeve, he's reacted better to you than anyone else. He actually touched you, he didn't touch anyone else. It seems like a little thing. He took Urahara's hat, but he reached out for you. While you were back at the world of the living, he didn't react to anyone else, then the minute you come back he lets you right in. Think about it."

Ishida started to discount them all and then closed his mouth with a snap. He was right. No one else had come near, the closest had been Urahara, but if he'd actually slapped away Orhime, so did that mean… He shook his head. No way. That was just impossible, no way that Ichigo… He snapped his head up and looked at Renji who had a wide grin on his face.

"You…you think he…likes me?" he said, surprised that he was even thinking such a thing.

"Holy souls, he gets it!" Renji said in an overly dramatic tone. "And you like him too, otherwise you wouldn't be curled up in bed with him and freaking out when things are going too well in the middle of the night running to Urahara."

"But…he's not…he never…" Ishida stammered, realizing his hand was still clutching orange hair in a soft grip.

Renji rolled his eyes. "Come on, get over it. Gender and shit don't mean anything. I've had my share of male and female lovers. Most of us here in soul society are less hung up on that crap than humans. I'll admit, my attractions have led me to Rukia, though we've never actually been together, I think Byakuya would take my head off with Senbozakura, and I've always had a great time messing with Ichigo. Honestly, have you ever seen Ichigo show a romantic interest in _anyone_? Male or female?"

Ishida shook his head. He never had. He was easy to embarrass, as was seen with Yourichi's habit of running about naked, but he never acted aroused by it. Simply annoyed and embarrassed. Renji smiled. "You guys get all hung up on what's on the outside of the body. Look, if you're attracted to someone's soul, what does it matter what they look like on the outside?"

Ishida stared at the sleeping face, mostly unmarred except a couple deeper scars that had been there too long for Inoue's magic to erase. "Uryu, tell me, what do you want? Why are you here and why are you doing this for him? If you can sit there and tell me once and for all that you have done this out of pure friendship, I'll leave it alone. But I know how much you loath most shinigami after what was done to the Quincy, and your own grandfather. Yet here you are, in the middle of a noble shinigami's house, taking care of another shinigami that you considered your greatest rival until recently. Now tell me you're here out of friendship or a need to repay him some debt unknown to me?"

"I…I want…" he stammered, and realized with a shock exactly what he wanted. More than anything. "I want him back. I want him whole. And…I think I want him with me."

Renji leaned back in the chair, almost tipping it over, a victorious smile on his face. "Good, then you fight for it. You can bring him back. He needs to know beyond a doubt that there's a reason to come back."

Renji stood up and left, leaving them alone. Ishida felt his heart thudding like mad in his chest. Did he just admit that he had feelings for Kurosaki? For Kurosaki of all people… But his mind spun back to their first real encounter. Standing back to back, under a massive onslaught of hollows that had no explanation. The hollow bait that shouldn't have drawn anything like a menos grande. Yet instead of leaving him to handle it, fingers bleeding from the effort, Ichigo stood back to back with him, and then drew on that unbelievable power he couldn't even control. And over him, as he syphoned off the power so he didn't self-destruct from it, saving his enemy. Maybe that was the first thing. He'd been willing to sacrifice himself for the seemingly on purpose actions of one enemy, then fight with him despite being to blame.

His head was spinning, but now he wondered if he really could carry similar feelings. But Renji was right, what else was there to explain him clinging to Ishida like a lifesaver. Like he was the only thing that mattered in the world. Maybe.

The next morning, the ritual was interrupted again, and he was steering a panicked looking orange haired shinigami out of the gates again. He kept glancing behind him as if he was going to run right back to the house and sit in the garden like they normally did after breakfast. But instead, his caretaker steered him toward the fourth division. They arrived, met by Urahara at the door who led them into an exam room where Unohana was waiting.

"Ishida, I've explained what you were talking about last night. I take it he's having trouble now from the break in routine again?" Urahara said as Ishida got him situated on the exam table. He was already picking at his hair again, though not yanking on it yet.

"Yeah, after breakfast we've been going to one of the gardens, and as soon as I told him we were going somewhere else he started to panic about it," Ishida said, grabbing his wrists before he could yank any hair out.

Unohana nodded, running her hands over Ichigo slowly, thoughtfully. She then stood behind him and placed a hand on either side of his head. Ishida did what he could to keep Ichigo still, but his eyes darted everywhere and more than once he had to hold a hand on his chin to keep his head from turning while Unohana worked. She dropped her hands and looked at Urahara.

"I can't tell a difference from when he was first brought in," she said softly. "I don't understand it, he should be having some of his personality resurface."

There was a long silence. "Can we make his hollow surface?"

Urahara looked at Ishida, frowning at first. "Make his hollow surface…we might be able to do just that and maybe get an idea of exactly what is happening in there."

"Goddammit fuckin' hell, king!" the voice screamed. "Where the fuck is he this time," he muttered, crashing through another window that sealed shut behind him.

"Fuck! When I get my hands on ya, I'm fuckin' gonna kill ya myself and take over!" he screamed, landing with a crash into the side of a nearly submerged sideways sky scraper.

The hollow, dubbed Shiro for his white nature, looked up at Zangetsu standing impassively on his damn flagpole. "The hell, Zangetsu? Any ideas?"

"The rain has stopped, I think it a good thing," Zangetsu said softly, looking around. A far cry from the thunder and lightning they felt at first, but still not bright and sunny.

Shiro groaned and felt a pull. "Hey, old man, I think they're trying to pull me up again. You think I should go have a chat?"

Zangetsu looked thoughtful then nodded. "You need to do something, Shiro, otherwise your threat to unseat your king is going to become all too real."

"Fine."

The world shook and he blinked his eyes. "Fuck, ya know some fuckin' warning would be damn nice," he muttered, swinging his legs over and sitting up on the mildly uncomfortable table.

Ishida frowned, looking at the strange eyes, the black sclera and gold pupils. It was a weird sight every time he'd ever come across it. Even when Ichigo used the hollow mask…

Urahara nodded. "Sorry, but we needed some insight on how to help Ichigo…it seems that our attempts are not quite reaching the soul core that you so studiously protected."

"Yeah, call it secondary fuckin' shock trauma. Havign two fuckin' years roll into your mind of torture kinda does that, he regressed, and he's been hidin' from me, bastard," Shiro said, crossing his arms with a huff. "For some reason his soul core is still not attached to the rest of him. No idea why the link hasn't been back yet."

Unohana nodded then glanced at his still scarred wrists. They looked the same. "Shiro, could it have something to do with this damage?"

Shiro lifted his arms and then looked like something hit him. "Of fuckin' course! The actual soul damage is this, at least this is the outside look of it. Until we can get this shit gone, heal the actual soul damage, we're fucked."

All three stared at him until Shiro huffed annoyed. "Look a soul can't heal like a body. Usually, once it's damaged, it's dead. But Ichigo is different, he's got me. The fuckin' cuffs were meant to seek it out and zap the shit outta the soul, cracking it into pieces. Well, after a fuckin' year, my barrier was degrading, and it managed ta get through the barrier and some of it was broken off…like a fuckin' crack in glass. Until we can get that put back together, an' seal it somehow…"

"How in the world can we do that?" Urahara asked, wide eyed.

Shiro sighed. "Find his twin soul."

"What?" Unohana asked.

"Twin soul. There's a soul that matches the wavelength of his own. Not everyone has one, and even if they do, they don't always live at the same time. They're souls that are drawn to each other through reincarnations, and they both have strong powers, an' I know that Ichigo's twin soul is alive now," he said, thoughtfully. "But it isn't me, as much as I'd like that, since I'm already in here."

"How do we find it?" Urahara asked softly, at a loss. He'd never heard of this concept.

Shiro shrugged. "Sometimes they get called soul mates, mostly they end up tangled in romance wit' each other. But…wait…"

Shiro fixed Ishida with a glare. "You, why do I smell our reiatsu all over ya?"

Ishida frowned. "Um, you should know already, the only way he'll sleep is if I stay with him," he said, surprised the hollow didn't know this already. "I thought you were in his head?"

"Wait, he's awake?" Shiro asked, a little surprised.

There was an exchange of glances. "Yeah…for the last week…"

"Fuck! I've been chasin' his fool ass all over the inner world the last fuckin' weak, yet he's awake too? That's fuckin' not possible. His soul can't be in there and out here at the same time," Shiro said, eyes reflecting genuine shock at the idea.

Ishida gasped. "You said his soul had been fractured toward the end, what if one of the fractures is actually allowing him to function, while the rest, what really makes him up is in there with you?"

Shiro nodded. "It's possible. You put him out, right, to get me out?"

Urahara nodded. "Yeah, we did."

"So that means…ah fuck. This is gonna be a pain in my ass, fuckin' king," Shiro said with a groan. "I'm gettin' tired of the fuckin' hide and seek with him. The minute I get close ta him, he gets away from me. And if I can't catch 'im, we can't bind his soul back together and then get him normal again…"

"Can I enter his inner world?" Ishida asked slowly, looking up at Shiro's black and gold eyes.

Shiro frowned. "I don't know, what good would it do?"

"I have an idea I want to test, but if I could get in there and ahold of him…" he began.

Urahara nodded. "You're the only one he seems to trust, that may be significant. There's a kido I know, but it is risky, you won't be entirely safe if he lashes out at you in there."

Ishida thought a moment, but that was all it took. If he was right, and the reason Ichigo had been drawn to him, the reason he trusted him implicitly, was what he thought it might be, he had a shot. He could try, at least. He had to trust in the instincts that were flooding him, telling him this was the right thing to do. He looked at Urahara.

"Do it. I want him whole again, Kisuke," Ishida said softly.


	10. Chapter 10 - Shattered Souls

**Chapter Ten**

Shattered Souls

* * *

A second bed was brought in, and Urahara had Ishida lay beside Ichigo's prone form. The hollow turned and fixed him with a glare.

"I can't protect ya in there, Quincy. But maybe you'll be fine. But then, since he's a Quincy…" Shiro said thoughtful.

"What?" Ishida said almost jerking off the bed.

Shiro snorted. "Mah king is a beast, Quincy boy. Shinigami and Quincy born, didn't you realize? And add a full fuckin' hollow, and there ya go. Why the fuck ya think I let him rule the show?"

Ishida fixed Urahara with a stare. He slowly nodded. "He's right, Uryu. Ichigo's father is a shinigami, his mother was a Quincy. This hollow came to him through her."

Things began to solidify in Ishida's head. That familiar yet unfamiliar reiatsu that Ichigo had. Of course. How was this even possible?

"No Quincy bows in there, huh? Don't wanna explode. Got enough fuckin' reiatsu in there to blow out half the building if yer dumb," Shiro said, laying back.

"Okay, both of you, relax, Unohana-taichou is going to apply a deep sleeping kido to both of you. Then I'll put the kido that can connect your inner worlds to each other. But, obviously, as a Quincy, Ishida, you don't have one, so you'll simply sink into Ichigo's inner world. Be careful," Urahara said, and then it all went blank for a minute.

Ishida opened his eyes slowly and almost had a heart attack. He was laying on the side of a sky scraper. He looked up to see an image of Ichigo, only reverse with white skin and clothes. But the black and gold eyes revealed who he was.

"Wake up, sleepin' Quincy," he said with a manic grin.

"What is this? I'm…sideways…" he said looking around.

There was a snort of laughter. "Just Ichigo's inner world. Now be careful, half the damn place is still under water…"

Ishida stood up, finding the tilted world stable. Shiro was right, only a few sideways buildings rose above the water. "Why is there so much water?"

Another voice spoke out. "When Ichigo is sad or troubled, it rains. And it has been raining a very long time now. Only in the last week has the rain let up." Ishida looked up to see a black clad figure standing on a flag pole.

"Fuck, Zangetsu, ya gotta be all philosophical all the damn time? Fucker," Shiro said. "Come on, gotta find fuckin' king soon. Or we really will fuckin' drown in here."

Ishida looked around and felt a tug. It was faint, but he headed that way. Shiro watched then looked at Zangetsu who shrugged, leaping after him. "Got an idea, Quincy boy?"

"Maybe. I thought I sensed something this way," he said softly. "If he's shattered apart, how many pieces of his soul are there?"

Shiro almost tripped. "Fuck, no idea. But if we don't find them all, we're fucked. At least two since I was chasing one, and there was one running the show. But by the time it broke the barrier, I was so weakened that I couldn't tell what was happening. Either way, let's just try to gather whatever we find."

Before long they came to a window that was open. Ishida dropped in and found himself looking a child, no more than nine or ten, playing on the floor, well really it was the wall since the building was tilted. He was sitting a large blackboard and drawing with chalk. There were three interlocking circles, looking almost like a diagram. He looked up, bright brown eyes and the familiar orange hair. His face was all smiles, and no trace of a scowl.

"Hiya! Have you seen my mommy? She hasn't come for me yet," he said cheerfully.

"No, but maybe we can help find her?" Ishida said, smiling to him.

The child looked skeptical. "Okay!" he announced and ran to leap into Ishida's arms. As soon as he came into contact with him, though he vanished in a puff of black and red smoke and Ishida felt something slam into his chest and pulse with energy.

"The hell?" he said, staggering backward a bit. He looked down, and in the center of his chest a bright white ball swirled.

Shiro arched a brow and shook his head. "Fuck me sideways, it is you, fuckin' twin souls…"

Ishida looked at him with wide eyes. "What's going on?"

"That part of his soul accepted ya, joined with ya, for the time being. Basically yer a container until we can find the other parts. Hope yer scrawny ass don't explode first," Shiro said with a shrug. "That one was easy. The rest may not be."

They left, heading out for the nearest sense of him. Shiro nodded and pointed in another direction and they were there in a moment. This time, there was an open window that they could hear panting breaths come from. They dropped in and Ichigo was kneeling, his soul chain encroaching. Ishida frowned.

"When he became a shinigami again," Shiro explained. "Only way to do with without dyin'. Also how he got mah power."

Ishida knelt before him. "Ichigo, it's time. Time to go."

Ichigo looked up, pain registering in his eyes. "That…would… be great…but…"

The final encroachment started and he threw his head back, the hollow mask forming. Ishida stepped back and watched as he writhed and fought the hollow trying to take him over. There was an explosion, and they were standing alone with shinigami Ichigo wearing the mask. He pulled it off and stared at them. Ishida reached out his hand to him. "Come, Ichigo, it's time."

Ichigo nodded and stepped forward and took Ishida's hand, and again a puff of the black and red tinted smoke, and Ishida felt the same crashing sensation, only stronger. He leaned over and panted with his hands on his knees. "I really hope there aren't too many more pieces…"

Shiro snorted with absolute glee. "Yeah, that was a huge piece of his soul, easily over half of it. Maybe we won't be so fucked after all. "

Again, they were off, leaping through sideways sky scrapers until a flash of black energy came screaming from below. A Getsuga… Shiro smiled, dodging and pulled his inverted Zangetsu. "This is a feisty one…follow me!"

Shiro engaged his double with glee. Ishida stood to the side, and was tempted to use a Quincy bow but thought better. He looked around. There had to be a pattern. The first was a child, so what did that represent… Innocence, perhaps. Then the second was when he gave up everything to become a shinigami again after having his soul chain shattered. Determination? That was possible. And now this one, a vicious frenzied version, fighting on even footing with Shiro. Innocence, determination, power? Possible. Or he could be seeing patterns where there were none.

Ishida called out, "Stop, Ichigo, time to stop!"

The orange haired figure stopped and stared at him for a minute then moved to attack. Shiro was quick to the defense. Ishida put a hand on his back.

"Let him go," he said.

Shiro arched a brow. "But if he kills ya in here, ya will die…"

"He can't kill me at all, Shiro."

The hollow backed off, and watched as Ichigo swung Zangetsu downward in a perfect arc to slice through Ishida from shoulder to hip. Except as soon as the blade touched him, he evaporated in that puff of black and red smoke and Ishida went skidding backward a few feet. He huffed and puffed for a moment and then stood up. "Okay. Not as easy as it looks. Now we find the rest and I can get the hell out of this tilted world."

Again, they were on the hunt. And this time they felt another strong piece. Ishida thougth perhaps there were two more. He still needed to find the part that had been in control, what he was calling the "pet" part of Ichigo, the piece that retrained the trained aspects of him. And the other had to be the part he was hiding so well. The pain and shame, the part that retained the memories of the last two years.

Unexpectedly they stumbled into a window and found a scene that made Ishida's heart clench. Ichigo was chained to a wall behind him, hands high and shackled. The cuffs gleamed menacingly, and a thick heavy collar sat about his neck. He was only covered in caked blood and bruises. Above his head, his hands were obviously mangled, twisted and purple. Knowing what had happened to him and seeing it were two different things. Ishida kneeled in front of him, and he lifted his vacant eyes up to him.

"Pet please master's friend?" he asked tentatively. "Pet be good pet for master's friend."

Ishida reached up, and found the latches easy to remove provided it was done from the outside. He slowly lowered his hands and stared at Ishida. "Pet go home?" he asked, tears slipping from those large chocolate eyes.

Ishida nodded and reached down to embrace him. With a soft huff of air, the image was gone and Ishida barely felt the impact of this piece of soul it was so very weak. He placed a hand over the glowing mass that was swirling in his chest. He knew that the last would be the hardest, but also the part that would release him. He stood shakily and together, he and Shiro exited. Once outside Shiro stopped.

"You must do this without me, Quincy. Good luck. Try not ta die," He said, throwing a two fingered salute his way and was gone.

He wanted to ask where to go, but he already knew the answer. He stared down into the water and sighed. In he jumped and began swimming. He really didn't think it mattered where, just down into the murky depths of his sadness and pain. It was almost tangible as he swam, making his heart ache and throb within him. He realized that breathing wasn't a problem. Granted, it wasn't real water, it was a mental world.

Down lower, he saw a flash of whiteness, and he saw the orange. He dove toward it. He burst through the water and was inside another room, this one with Ichigo wrapped in a sheet, curled into the corner. Blood dripped from many places, his head, his arms, and the cuffs were gone, but in their place were raw, red wounds seething with pus and infection. The wounds that went to the core of his soul reflected.

"Go away!" he yelled, growling almost at him. "Go away and leave me to die here!"

"No," Ishida said and kept moving forward.

"I'm not leaving here, I'm…stained."

"No."

"I'm not worth this, just go back and leave me be! I'm alone in my sorrow, and it is for myself so I don't need your pity," he yelled, pulling himself into the corner even more.

"No," Ishida repeated coming forward again.

"Stay back!" he practically screamed. "I'm stained, dirty, used, a monster no one wants or loves! Leave me alone to die!"

"But Ichigo, you're none of those things."

"If you saw what they did, what I did…you'd leave me here!" he screamed.

Ishida was now kneeling in front of him. "So show me. Give it to me, all of it, give me all two years and see what I do."

Ichigo's eyes widened. "What?"

"You say I won't want to help you out of here when I saw what happened. So show me. And then I'll either leave you here or I won't. Otherwise I'm not leaving," he said easily.

Ichigo seemed to think. He wasn't quite who he should be, but Ishida knew this was only a small part of him. "Fine, you asked for it. You'll be disgusted with me. You'll kill me with your own hands."

Ichigo reached out and tapped his skull tentatively, and the world exploded for a moment inside Ishida's head. It was like a movie going at super high speed, which only a brain could interpret because it was too fast for eyes. He saw it all. From the beginning, fighting, spitting and yelling at his captors no matter how often they beat him nearly to death, or punished him, or left him bleeding. He saw the broken bones, the pleasure they gained from his pain. He saw the faces of the illusion, but then there was a flicker in each face that was a telltale sign that they were indeed disguised illusions. Then the cuffs were applied, and the world spun sickly as he saw two things, the core of his soul thrashing against the cage and the energy seeking to shatter it. On the outside, the training of what remained, the constant pain and everything. Then it was flashed to one day, where they all took particular glee in hurting him repeatedly, crushing him, and then he was awakening in terror at confused Byakuya.

Ishida staggered backward and clutched his chest. Two years in about two minutes had just spun through his mind. And he stared at the cowering form before him. Tears gathered in his eyes.

"Don't pity me! Just leave!" he yelled, covering his face.

"I don't pity you," Ishida said, leaning forward. "I…love you."

The form looked up with wide shocked eyes as Ishida leaned forward and pressed gentle lips to the bloody ones before him. A warmth emanated outward, and the soul fragment was absorbed, this time seamlessly. Ishida stood as there was a warmth spreading out throughout him and the glowing fragments rose up, swirling together.

As the world began to fade, he heard a gentle voice he knew.

_Thank you._

Ishida sat up with a start, nearly head butting Urahara. He was panting and clutching his chest and looked over urgently at Ichigo who was still out. "Did it work?" he asked.

Urahara shook his head. "I have no way to know, but since you're alive and well with your soul in your body, I'd say that's a good sign."

Ishida crawled down off the bed and moved to sit beside Ichigo, grabbing his hands in his own. "I meant what I said, Ichigo, so please, you need to come back to me now."

There was a long drawn out moment before a pulse of light emitted from the center of his chest and spread throughout his prone form. His back arched off the table, black reiatsu seeping from every pour and filing the room with pressure that would have sent a lesser shinigami to their knees. Then it was over and Ichigo's body fell back down. Slowly, eyes fluttered and looked up to lock with Ishida's expectant ones.

"Ichigo?" he asked quietly.

"Uryu…" he said softly. "I do too…"

With that, his head slumped over into sleep, and Uryu was left smiling with two shinigami who looked at each other with curious glances.

* * *

_A/N: Thought I'd ad this. This has more goodies coming, and yes, it is steadily growing warmer and nicer. But remember, he's still got a LONG way to go. Now that he has a fully functioning brain, there will be new complications. And a lot of relearning yet to go. So please, enjoy, and review and let me know. I hope the twin soul thing doesn't sound too trite or cliche. I really like that idea... Anyway, thanks for reading, and if you'd please review that'd be great. And also, I've got a ton of other stories just iching to be read by you! _


	11. Chapter 11 - Shatter

**Chapter Eleven**

Shatter

* * *

Dragging himself out of the depths of unconsciousness was far more difficult than he'd ever imagined. His whole body was heavy. He felt a warmth though and as his eyes blinked open he realized his face was buried in a head of dark hair that was on his chest. He sighed, making the head move away from him.

"Ichigo?" came the familiar voice, but it was escaping his reach at the moment.

He looked up, a frown creasing his face as he blinked slowly, desperately trying to link the face with who the person was. He knew them, he knew them very well… It was just out of reach though. He bit his lip and shook his head.

"Do you remember me? What do you remember, Ichigo?" he asked again.

Again, felt his eyes blink slowly, as his mind spun out of control and he clutched the bed underneath him to stabilize himself as his whole world spun out of sync. He grimaced against the incredible feeling of vertigo washing over him.

"Give him a minute," another equally familiar voice said. "He's going to be disorientated for a while. That was no easy thing you and Shiro pulled off. Never seen anyone do that before…"

The world finally stopped swimming sickly and he opened his eyes. His head was clouded, and he couldn't think right. He looked around and felt another wave of familiarity and déjà vu hit him. His breath got faster as a sudden vision slammed into him and voices and images slammed into him and he knew them immediately to be memories. He shut them off.

"Too much at once," he whispered. "Too much…"

A hand encased his own. "Don't worry about it, Ichigo. It doesn't have to come back all at once."

He blinked. "Ichigo…is my name…" he said softly. "I'm…in…soul society…"

"Good, good, that's better than you've been for a while," the other familiar voice above him said softly.

"I…I was captured…by Aizen…but it wasn't him…but it was and I knew that…but my head," he said, putting a hand on his head.

A female voice he knew spoke. "He used his hypnosis on you. And it is going to take a while to piece things together, okay?"

He closed his eyes and listened as the voices talked around him, about him, but he didn't have the energy to interject. He was really too tired.

"The assimilation seems to have been successful, thanks to you. But he's still not back to normal yet, those fractured pieces are still scarred. There may be holes in his memory until he fills them in slowly. Be prepared for panic attacks as they come back. All those things may happen again and he may not understand why, so stay close. You seem to be the only thing that can calm him, Uryu," she said softly.

"Shouldn't he stay here, instead of going back to the manor? What if Byakuya triggers…"

At the name he felt a shudder take him and he shook his head. No, he wasn't going to be fooled by the illusion in his head. Not at all. The Byakuya he knew would never do the things that were currently attached to his name in his mind.

"Are you okay?" came the voice by his ear as a hand encompassed his cheek. He nodded slowly.

He was fading though, and he felt himself slip into sleep again. He was too tired to fight it, though. He was falling but it was like his inner world was locked to him, why was that? It was weird, but he let himself relax even so.

A flash of pain and his eyes opened. He looked up into brown eyes familiar to him that filled him with dread. "Shatter." The word reverberated over and over in his head. _Shatter. Shatter. Shatter._

And he felt like he was coming apart at the seams, like he was shattering to pieces, fracturing turning and spinning in the darkness, spiraling down into a pit that was going to swallow him whole. Splitting open at the sides, blood falling, pattering on the white floor, splattering on the walls in a pattern of the mask he wore. Dripping, thick lines painted the floor around him as lifeblood flooded from his veins. And he looked down to see the knife in his own hands, opening his own veins wide.

"Shatter." Again the world spun sickly, the pieces of the vision splitting apart and falling at his feet. Insurmountable pain as faces swam before his eyes, faces he knew and loved doing horrible things to him, things they should never do. No, they were all illusions. Nothing more! Was this his power? But he couldn't even put his finger on the name, he knew it, back there somewhere, but just when he was about to bring it up to his mind…

"Shatter." He screamed, the filaments of his memory breaking apart in his hands. But he saw a face, he saw blue eyes, and he knew he had to grab onto that image. Black hair, blue eyes, pale skin. The only thing that didn't break apart and sweep away into the depths of the darkness that threatened to swallow him whole. Tendrils of night reached up and grasped at him but he gripped. He held tight, tighter than ever before…

"Shatter." Again he screamed, his throat was raw with it and he thought he would spit blood before this torment was over. He thrashed in the confines of mind and body, feeling the searing pain shoot through him from toe to crown. His whole frame was wracked with the fight of it. He felt kido wash over him, he knew that kido, to make him sleep and he was glad, someone had heard him and taken mercy on him…

"Shatter." The kido broke apart and he was in agony again. He screamed in desperation, willing the kido to return, to grant him the sleep he needed, the sleep to make him forget all the nightmares all the horrors, but it refused to return. Instead he sought the face that would ground him, the face that would make the world stabilize and stop fracturing into billions of shards of glass. Grasping and reaching for that face, the only stable thing…

_When did his face become my only thought? When did it happen…his mind spun out of control, casting back, back to the first time they met, or rather when he really noticed the Quincy. He had no idea what he was, he didn't understand, all he knew is he was protecting his family, and then he was protecting the souls from hollows, and even though he'd brought that massive fight on them, and the menos grande that was summoned, he didn't hate him. He didn't even mind so much that he hated shinigami, and by definition him._

_He wasn't defined by anyone. So they could call him a shinigami, and he'd swear he was human. That was him. He didn't live in the borders created by others. He wasn't completely oblivious to those around him. He felt the eyes now and then, and he chose to ignore them. Never had he felt the butterflies of attraction in his stomach like others. He had enough to deal with since the stupid ghosts didn't leave him be, and then with the shinigami stuff, and then this whole mess._

_He became close to them all. And even pulling that damned prideful Quincy with him even though he resisted. Why would he do that? He never interceded and made others give him company. But him…he was different. He wanted him beside him. He wanted him there. But more than that, he wanted him to fill him with whatever was missing in his tortured soul. And then a memory surfaced. It was so clear._

_Torment burned in every corner of his being but he saw the white sleeve, in the same way he had recognized that obnoxious white and green striped hat. It was hazy, pushing past the trained reactions that threatened to swallow the tiny bits of consciousness he could maintain by sheer will. But that sleeve, and he remembered clearly, even in his muddled mind, that he had to see if it was him. If he had really come to help him, finally come to help him after he cried his name so many times and suffered for it. And he knew that the only way to find out… And he tugged at the sleeve, his first contact that close to another body that he'd initiated…in almost two years… He remembered the light pressure of his fingers brushing the skin of his wrist and the cross falling from his sleeve. And just like that the slamming fear of uttering his name…he couldn't…couldn't say it or he'd be punished so badly…because he knew he'd begged for him to save him. And every time…every time…he was left nearly dead. And it had only been him. The others, he cried out, but only one did he ever scream to save him. And he never asked anyone to save him. Ever. But for some reason, this connection he felt, he wanted to feel protected and saved by this person._

_Then he just was the only thing stable. His mind reeled, the cuffs no longer restricting his power, but he couldn't seem to connect the parts of himself tumbling loose in his frame. Something was wrong, something was so wrong, but still he held onto the only warmth in the world he was sure of at the moment. He gripped it tight and he soon couldn't live without it. It was his breath, his life, that security, the only security that he could hold to as his entire being twisted and writhed in some weird attempt to obliterate itself._

_The pain, the aching pain that was left when the black barrier started to crack, whipping out and snapping his soul apart, swelled into his chest and he wanted to push it back, along with all the memories…_

"Shatter." Again, a scream erupted as he grabbed, hands scrambling for some semblance of purchase. He was shattering again, the world wavering and falling apart until hands gripped his and the sensation was flooding him. It was a connection, a soothing, deep connection…

"Shatter!" More insistent now, but the hands and the body they were attached to didn't shatter. Didn't disappear and he held on for dear life. Because this was his life, his whole being struggling not to give in to the insistent command to shatter his soul back to the fragmented mess it had been. How could this happen? There was some power over him, within him, connecting him to those that were still tormenting him…

"Shatter!" The sound was deafening as he felt his body stiffen and arch, the world wavering, but still the face and the feeling of connection refused to shatter. He felt his reiatsu raise and before he knew it, the face, the warmth was encompassed in his energy and pressure. He heard a gasp but it wasn't a painful one, just surprised. It coiled and coiled and drew him to him until he could feel something deeper than just a brush of connection.

"Shatter…" the voice was fading away in the cacophony of sensation as he felt the warmth taking over, pushing away the coldness, pushing away the voice…for now. He relaxed, slipping into the familiar area of unconsciousness.

The first scream brought everyone's attention to Ichigo again. He was obviously fighting something in his mind. Ishida moved closer along with Unohana and Urahara who flipped a couple monitoring devices on.

"What's that?" Urahara muttered as another, stronger scream escaped the sleeping form. "That's not right…what is that…Unohana-taichou?"

Ishida watched as he wrestled whatever demons ran through his head, then reached and took his hands into his own. Would it comfort him like before when he had the nightmares? He found more than a little sadness settle into his heart when he continued to thrash and yell out. He jerked suddenly at the words he was suddenly feeling surface in the mind of his friend.

"Urahara…why do I hear Aizen's voice?" Ishida said softly, looking up.

Both of the others in the room looked up. "What do you hear? Is it through the soul link you have with him?"

Ishida nodded. "Yeah, it…shatter. That's it, I keep hearing it, and every time, his soul becomes…shaky…like it's vibrating…"

"Oh dear, this is not a good sign, which explains the readings… Somehow he's got a link to him again. And I'm not sure how to sever it," he said, turning his attention back to him. "He's trying to shatter his soul again. Using his zanpakuto power, no doubt."

"What's a soul link, Urahara?" he asked, squeezing the hands in front of him.

"You seem to share a soul bond, something rarely seen. Mates, lovers, friends, sometimes they come together out of a soul bond. Somewhere along the hands of time, souls sometimes touch and bond to each other. Through the years of reincarnations, they come back, sometimes reasserting their connection with each other. Some call it soul mates, others the concept of the twin soul, and still other the idea of bonded souls. Soul link is something that occurs when the two souls are reconnected, forging a bond that can't be broken. So, from here on, you and he will be able to sense disturbances in the soul, and because you are both reiatsu users, the reiatsu of the other as well," he said, speaking as he ticked off readings on a machine, never stopping the motion of his hands to change from his speech.

He looked back. "I'm not sure how you and he feel about each other, and I am not even certain of either of you as far as preferences, but I must warn you, for connected souls to separate is detrimental. At the very least, you will need to stay close to each other as friends. Other than that, it is up to you both where you take things. Be warned though, the likelihood of either of you ever taking another in a romantic relationship is fairly impossible. Even should you stay friends, the bond won't allow a deep and lasting connection with anyone but each other."

Ishida nodded. "So, either we are together, or we are alone for the rest of our lives."

"That is the gist of it, Uryu-san, I am sorry. When you established that connection, it was determined. If I had known before…I would have let you continue anyway to save him. And I am sorry."

Ishida nodded, squeezing tightly to both hands. He concentrated and poured what he could of his own energy into the body before him. Maybe if he could bolster him, through his own reiatsu… Suddenly, black reiatsu tinged with red burst out of him and encompassed them both, setting both Urahara and Unohana back on their heels. After a moment it receded, and Ichigo was unconscious, and Ishida was standing panting over his body.

"It's gone, though I'm not sure what happened…" Ishida said softly, reaching out to brush the hair from his face which was drenched with sweat by now.

Urahara smiled softly and motioned for Unohana to come with him. They left the two boys alone, so Ishida could figure this out on his own. The older shinigami had a good idea, but it wasn't their place to interfere in the situation.

Ishida sat, putting his head down on Ichigo's chest and listening carefully to his breathing and heartbeat. He was also listening deeper for that horrible word. He wanted to tear Aizen's heart out so that that word would never emerge from his lips again. But he knew that was folly to think of that. He was a mere Quincy, and not even the whole of the gotei 13 had been able to stand against him.

He heard someone enter the room and he looked up to see Renji standing there.

"Hey, Uryu, anything yet?" he asked softly.

He nodded. "Yeah, it looks like Aizen's still connected to him somehow. Unohana-taichou and Urahara-san went to see what they could come up with. Looks like we share some kind of soul bond…"

"Ah, those happen I've heard. Never met someone with an active and current bond. There are stories, of couples who go through hell to save each other. I guess someone one day we will be writing one about you," Renji said, patting Uryu's shoulder.

"Did you know about the bond?" Uryu asked softly, looking up.

He shook his head. "That's not something you can sense. And I know what it means, those old stories tell the tale of those that ignore such a bond, and live, long lonely lives. I really don't know how Ichigo feels about you, and I just hope for both your sakes, he feels the same."

The redhead sighed and watched for a while, and then walked out. Uryu sighed and fell into a rather uncomfortable sleep with head on the bed. He knew what Ichigo had said, that he felt the same, but could he trust what he was saying in such a state? He hoped he could. It was lonely enough being the last Quincy.

"So they actually managed to get my cuffs off and his soul is intact?" Szayel said, wide eyed. "That's impressive."

Aizen sat at the head of the meeting table. "Yes, and that means that he is more of a nuisance than I gave him credit for in the beginning. Grimmjow, go bring him back. You will still be seen as that annoying redhead to him. Cover your presence, and be careful."

Grimmjow frowned. "Aizen-sama, not to question you, but isn't that taking a huge chance just for one plaything?"

Aizen sighed, resting on hand on his fist. "He's more than a plaything, Grimmjow. He contains power that isn't even tapped yet, and if it is tapped before the hogyuku is fully awakened… Not many can survive what Szayel did to him. I can see now sending him to soul society was a mistake."

"Why not just kill him?" Grimmjow pressed. It was really annoying to say the least that he'd been pulled for this.

"Because then, as you said, I'd lose my plaything. Something so powerful, under my control, and all those fools in soul society will know it," he said with a smirk. "Make preparations, and do not get caught."

Grimmjow stood and headed out. This was such a hassle. He'd hoped he'd never lay eyes on that pathetic creature again, and now he was going to get him right under soul society's noses. Well, it would be fun, perhaps. Once the rest of the meeting was let out, Grimmjow headed over to pick up some equipment from Szayel to make sure he wasn't detected in soul society for his mission. Then it was a matter of him being outside the walls… That could prove problematic.


	12. Chapter 12 - Common Things

_A/N: So things are working toward healing. And yes, the evil mechanizations are continuing in the background. I can't have a long fic without multiple bad things happening to the strawberry love, now can I? :)_

* * *

**Chapter Twelve**

Common Things

* * *

He awoke and felt radiating warmth on his chest, and saw that someone's dark head was resting on him. He reached out and buried both hands in the black hair and felt him stiffen as he sat up to stare at him with those blue eyes that pierced him to the soul.

"I…I…" he stammered, and frowned, confused because he couldn't get the words to form.

"Hey, don't worry, it will come back, Ichigo," the raven haired man said softly.

Ichigo. That's right, that defined him. His…name. What a difficult concept to understand as his fragmented thoughts tried to pull together. And he was trying to put together a name for the person before him.

"Ur…Ury-yu…" he finally stammered, his eyes going wide. There! He'd said it!

He was greeted with a broad smile. "Yes! Oh good, you remembered me, I was afraid it would take forever…"

Suddenly, unbidden, tears began to form in his eyes and he wasn't sure why. He was overcome at once with a tidal wave of emotions that he hadn't wanted to let out, but it happened uncontrolled. It was random, seemingly, and there was no real reason but he found himself in moments sobbing uncontrollably into Ishida's chest, arms wrapped around him, his whole body shaking.

Ishida looked up in concern to Urahara who had just entered. "It may happen like this, give him time, Uryu-san. Everything is going to come back fast."

Eventually, the shaking stopped and he looked at Uryu with a confused expression. "Why?" he whispered, almost too softly to be heard.

Uryu rubbed his back gently and smiled, letting the smile light his eyes. "Because…I guess I love your stupid shinigami ass. And now I find out you're a Quincy too. So yeah."

Ichigo didn't look like he really understood what had been said. He just nodded and rested his head against him again. "Oh," he said softly.

After a bit, a fourth division member came in and was talking to him about how he was doing and how he felt. Ishida remained in his position, Ichigo clinging to him as he watched the other man walk around and talk with a wary eye. Then he reached out and took Ichigo's shoulder, asking him to lie down so he could examine him better so he could leave in a while. First his breathing quickened, and he was trying to do what he was asked, but as he lay back on the bed, his heart began to race and his eyes began to flit back and forth around the room. "No…" he muttered and shot up, grabbing for Ishida and finding comfort in the distinct scent he gave off. "Leave me alone," he whined, his face now buried in the Quincy's chest.

Urahara put a hand on the young shinigami, "I'll handle this for now, okay? Can you get Unohana-taichou?" The young man nodded and left quickly.

"Ichigo?" Urahara said softly, leaning forward.

He lifted his head and his eyes immediately went to Urahara's hat, making the coy shopkeeper smile with glee. "That's it. Now, can you lay back for me, just need to make sure you're okay before I let Uryu here take you back to Kuchiki-taichou's home to really rest."

Ichigo nodded but as soon as he was lying on the bed, grabbed Ishida's hand in a bruising grip. Wincing, the Quincy said nothing but watched instead. Urahara ran hands laced with reiatsu above him and nodded, stopping above his head. Ichigo sqeezed his eyes closed as soon as he came close, though, tensing. Uryu patted his shoulder and waited. Unohana came in and nodded to Urahara.

"Alright," He said, smiling at them. "You can take him back, but please, if what happened today happens again, get him here immediately. I'm not sure if he's shake off the link or not, but we'll continue working on it from here."

Unohana had laid a blue yukata down on the foot of the bed with a pair of tabi for him to put on. Ichigo stared at them as though they were a foreign substance as his mind tried to fish around for how to deal with it. Thoughts and memories struggled to connect together.

"I'll help, okay?" Uryu said and picked up the folded garment and shook it out, holding it up. Ichigo nodded and stood up, his covers slipping and he realized that he was completely nude underneath. For some reason though, it didn't bother him as he let Uryu wrap the obi around his waist and then helped him fumble the tabi on. He stared at his feet, now encased in white and then looked up at him.

"Sorry," he said softly, brow crinkling at some thought that ran through his mind suddenly.

Uryu shook his head and pulled him along toward the door. He led him slowly through the streets, garnering looks from several people they knew and didn't know. Every time someone got near enough to touch Ichigo, he'd flinch away and edge closer to Uryu. And Uryu, as annoyed as he should have been at the behavior, instead found himself very happy that he could be the one to offer comfort to the previously unbreakable friend.

They meandered their way to the room he'd been given and Uryu was sure that it was lunch by now. He told Ichigo to stay there while he went to see what was going on in the manor and where the others were. He found Rukia in the kitchen.

"We've returned, Rukia-san," he said with a smile. "Would you like to come visit him?"

Rukia thought and asked, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I think so, come, let's bring him lunch. Surely that will make him feel better," he said with a smile."

They returned to the room to find him sitting at the door staring outside. Rukia felt a burning ache, knowing how far he had fallen from himself. He looked up with a start at both of them entering, laden with a large tray between them, but he didn't bolt.

"Ichigo, Rukia would like to join us for lunch," Uryu said, setting the tray on a low table. He went over and pulled him to his feet to come sit for food.

He sat down and stared at Rukia for a long time until Rukia started to feel a bit uncomfortable. "Are you okay, Ichigo?" she asked softly.

He frowned, taking up his chopsticks and shook his head. "No," he said simply and started to slowly pick pieces of food out to eat.

She bit her lip. "Okay, bad question, I guess I should ask, how you are feeling?"

Ichigo ate thoughtfully for a moment. "Pulling apart…trying to put together…jumbled."

Uryu patted his arm thoughtfully. "Ichigo, don't rush it. It hasn't been that long since we meshed that soul of yours back together."

Rukia nodded. "So how in the world did you manage to repair an actual soul?"

"Something about a soul link or something," Ishida said, frowning. "I guess our souls are now connected for good…"

"Like a soul bond?" she asked, staring at him. "Between you two?"

Ishida smiled. "So it seems."

"Orhime is going to be so upset," she said thoughtfully, eating a bit more. "You know she's always had a crush on Ichigo from what I understand. And now he'll be unattainable. Even if he were to completely recover from this."

Just then there was a noise and they looked up to see Orhime and Chad with Renji. Orhime was already teary eyed as she held her arms across her chest. "Kurosaki-kun!" she said, holding her breath.

He looked up and blinked at her and then looked at Chad and then returned to eating as tough nothing had happened. Renji dropped his hand to her shoulder and squeezed tightly. "Believe me, it is an improvement. I know that's hard to believe, but the fact that he isn't running with us here, is an improvement. Did Urahara fill you in on what happened with the soul fracturing?"

Orhime nodded. "Yeah, somehow Ishida-kun helped him?"

Ishida nodded, feeling Ichigo stiffen beside him. It was more than that, it was a soul deep rattle as the chopsticks fell from his hands and his eyes darted around the room franticly. The reverberations from his resistance flared out in black around his body like a second skin. He threw both hands to his head and held his head as a pain shot through it.

"_Shatter._" The word could be heard even by the others in the room.

"No, outta my head…outta me…go away…" he muttered, shaking his head violently, trying to dislodge the pressure. "Not again…not again…"

Ishida grabbed both hands and yanked them away, turning him to face him. He planted a hand on each of Ichigo's temples and pressed his forehead against his. "No, he's not going to do it again, stay with me," he said softly, the black reiatsu reaching out and encompassing him as well. Ichigo put each of his hands on top of Ishida's.

Ishida bolstered the bond between them, solidifying it until it was almost tangible in the room between them, a thick blue and black ribbon coiling around their bodies. The ripping effects were still there, but he was slowly calming them, and holding Ichigo's mending soul together with the force of his own.

"You can break one soul, Aizen," he said softly, barely audible to the others in the room. "But can you rip apart two bonded souls?"

There was a bright flare and then the reiatsu settled back down and Ichigo slumped against Ishida, completely unconscious. Ishida looked up to see both Byakuya and Urahara at the door.

"He tried again?" Urahara asked. Ishida nodded.

"I was able to stabilize the mending parts; he was going right for where we just put him back together. But it takes so much energy to do it…how am I going to get him to stay out?" he asked, laying Ichigo down, petting through his hair as he did so.

"Aizen is nothing if not tenacious," Byakuya said, crossing his arms.

Ishida looked up at him. "You need to spend some time here with him, Kuchiki-taichou. Especially you."

Byakuya actually had a look of discomfort cross his normally stoic face. "I am not sure that is a good idea."

Urahara patted his shoulder. "I know you fear his reaction, but we have to break any remaining illusion away from his mind. If we don't, he'll never get past what was done to him."

Byakuya nodded, still unsure. Truthfully, he was still coming to terms with the idea that his face, his person, had been used to do something so horrible to him. He was unsure how such a horrible idea had come to Aizen's mind. It was too twisted to even comprehend. But then, using Hanomori as he had, he could see that cruelty was something that ran deep in Aizen's twisted mind. He was brought out of his thoughts by Ishida standing beside him, talking to him.

"What is it, Ishida?" he said flatly.

"I asked if you would stay with him, while I went with Urahara to perform some tests on me? I don't want to wake him and drag him with me," he said softly, glancing back at the sleeping orangette.

Byakuya nodded. "I will stay."

The others left and Byakuya moved the food tray out of the way. He wondered if he should pull him up on the futon, as he'd just fallen back onto it. He sat down beside him slowly. How could someone be brought down so fast? Then he had to remind himself that hit hadn't been fast. Steadily, he'd been torn down over two years. Two years of being tortured in the most hellish ways imaginable. And though his body had been returned, it was still a long way. He heard a noise and looked down to see that Ichigo was staring at him intently.

"You are awake," he said softly.

Ichigo's brow furrowed, not quite as far as a scowl, but still, it was better than the blank look he'd been known for lately. "Bya-Byak-kuya…" he muttered.

"That is correct, Ichigo. How are you at this moment?" he asked, as Ichigo watched him.

He stayed where he was. "Trying to break…the mask…on you," he said, frowning and closing his eyes. "I see you…but it is not you…and I _knew_ it wasn't you…I _knew._ But…it was so hard to remember…to remember you weren't there…"

"It is okay, to take time. I am very unsettled by what has happened. Will you tell me what he did in my name?" he asked softly, hoping that it was not too much for him.

Ichigo nodded, pushing himself to a sitting position. "I'm putting it together. Broken pieces of things. Shifts throughout my memory. But I remember the first time I saw you…him…he said…I was a monster, that everyone knew it, that no one would help me, because of what I was…that I was tainted, wrong…but I never thought you'd think that…do you?" he said suddenly, looking up him.

Byakuya shook his head. "Of course, not Ichigo. I never saw you as a monster. Struggling with some inner demon, yes, but I knew you would find a way to deal with it. You were strong enough to do that," he said softly, reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder.

Ichigo looked at it and then put his own hand on it. "I knew when you gave me chocolate that you weren't the same…he was never nice to me…never gave me what I asked…and then would do those things to me…and I felt like I was dying inside."

Byakuya nodded. "I can only imagine what he put you through. What you survived, I am sure it would have killed a lesser person long before it had been half over."

Ichigo looked away. "That first year, before he broke my will with those cuffs, it was so easy, sometimes. To fight them, and no matter what, I refused to do what they asked willingly. Broken bones, and cuts and wounds, I lived with them all because it meant that I was refusing to give in to him. And if it had just been that…I…I would have been okay…but to watch myself…turn into what I became…I was sick to see it and unable to stop it, as I begged them…pleaded with them…to do those things…to go so far…as to do them to myself…"

Byakuya started and stared at him for a moment. "To yourself?"

He shivered. "To cut myself, he left me a knife, to be able to use it when I wanted to do it. And I _loved_ it. To control my pain, to control how much blood. And to punish myself and it just…it felt like I was in control for a few brief moment…"

Byakuya was sick at the thought that he had been made to do those things to himself. Ichigo looked up at him, and suddenly grabbed onto him around under his arms. For a moment the stoic clan head was surprised, and then he put his arms down around him, knowing that feeling contact that wasn't filled with pain was essential. But he had initiated a touch, a strong one. And Byakuya, while not entirely comfortable with it, remained as long as he needed.

He sat up finally, letting go of him. "Sorry," he said softly, sighing as he looked around.

Byakuya smiled at him. "No, nothing to be sorry of. You are in need of this type of thing right now. To know that I'm not the person that did this."

Ichigo frowned. "There's this part of me, a really big…part. It tells me that this, this is an illusion too."

"This is no illusion, Kurosaki," he said nodding.

He smiled and stood up, walking around the room. And he wasn't having a difficult time at all, even with his "master" in the room. He was very proud of himself. Then his eyes fell on a drink serving set. It was a simple, a silver bucket to be filled with eyes, and a pair of tongs that had a rough opening meant to crack pieces of ice. It was sturdy, of course, made to break ice with both the tongs and with the inner area. But to him, another image flooded his mind. An image of those being used in his mouth, being held down and screaming as they pried a tooth out of him, and watching with sick horror as it was crushed to bits before his eyes. The sick pleasure on the master had sent a shiver down his spine and now he was backing away, his heart beating rapidly in his throat and shaking his head, trying his best to will away the image, and the ghost of pain that ripped through him.

He was shaking and soon had wedged himself into the space between the bed and the wall, hold his head and whimpering for it to just go away, to leave him be. His tongue found no missing teeth in his mouth, of course, Inoue's healing had taken care of that, but he shivered at the remembered pain. He looked up when a hand shook him and he screamed, the master over him. And he pleaded to not be punished to leave him alone, because caught in the memories he couldn't help but scream what he wished he'd been able to before this moment.

Byakuya had no idea what initiated the panic attack, but he recognized one when he saw it. The boy had seen something, something that brought back a memory. He stayed with him, and tried to keep him from hurting himself. He was already trying to tear at his hair, and he had to pull his hands away and then he glared at the man over him and screamed. The unbridled terror in his voice was enough to set Byakuya's teeth on edge. He quickly pulled him up, pressing his back to his chest and wrapped both arms around in front, holding his hands down as the thrashed against him, struggling to get away, and weeping about the pain and wanting to be left alone. Then, the words that made Byakuya realize the cause of the boy's terror.

"Please…I'll be good…no more pulling…please it hurts…" he choked out and then his whole body seemed to release the tension. He leaned back against him, breath ragged and uncontrolled still. He looked down to see him running tongue across his teeth again and again.

Byakuya glanced to where he'd been standing and saw the drink tray with the bucket and the…ice tongs… He gasped. Of course, he'd been missing several teeth when they found him, pulled out, and others that were crushed inside his mouth. They had used plain, household items, not even using torture devices, so that it was that he would be exposed daily to the tools of his own torture. He hugged him closer, not caring that several servants had entered the room.

"Kuchiki-sama?" someone asked, and he felt the boy in his arms flinch at the use of the honorific.

"No, please, go, inform Urahara-san that there has been an incident, and don't answer, don't say anything else," he said, glaring at the man. He took him seriously, and nodded, running from the room.

"Ichigo," he said softly. "Are you back with me?"

The boy's breathing had steadied. He nodded, but as soon as Byakuya started to let go, he gripped his arms even tighter. "Don't let go yet," he breathed. "Please."

Byakuya nodded, moving to a better position, letting him sit against him as his pulse slowly began to slow down.


End file.
